Why have so few players won the Australian Open and US Open in the same year?

It’s perhaps still a little-known fact that, up until 1987, the Australian Open was played on grass courts.

The switch to hard courts was initiated in time for the 1988 edition, which ensured that the Aussie Open had similar atmospherics to the US Open  – namely, a fast playing surface and hot and steamy weather.

And yet, so few players have won both of these Grand Slam events in the same year. Why not?

Doubling Up

If you were asked to predict the winners of the Australian and US Open, you might name the same player for both.

Those placing a men’s singles US Open bet, for example, will likely opt for the usual suspects at the head of the market – as they would at Melbourne.

Meanwhile, the women’s singles tennis odds for both the Australian and US Open are eerily similar, with the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, and Elena Rybakina amongst those expected to dominate.

So why can’t there be a repeat winner at Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows? The answer is that, well, historically, it just doesn’t happen.

Just four men have won both the Australian Open and US Open in the same year, with Mats Wilander, Roger Federer, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic the first to do so.

Nearly four decades have passed since the Aussie Open switched to hard courts at the Rod Laver Arena, and yet only five women have won that event and the US Open in the same calendar year: Steffi Graf (1988 and 1989), Monica Seles (1991 and 1992), Martina Hingis (1997), Angelique Kerber (2016), and Aryna Sabalenka (2024).

Although in theory, there are similarities between the two tournaments, the history books confirm that doesn’t mean that winning one isn’t often a passport to prevailing in the other.

Raring to Go

There are other situational and conditional factors to consider.

The Australian Open enjoys prime real estate on the tennis calendar in January. The players are typically refreshed after the winter break, and injuries have healed, helping them to play to their best level.

Fast forward nine months to the business end of the US Open, and even the top players can be fatigued and carrying injuries – something that perhaps helps to create the variance in winners at Flushing Meadows.

Although both events use hard courts, it should be noted that these differ in character. The courts used at Melbourne Park are considered to be fast and low in bounce, whereas Flushing Meadows is typically the opposite – favoring players that prefer slower, bouncier conditions while somewhat negating a power serve.

What’s more, the weather conditions in Queens, New York, tend to be unique – this is not the dry heat of Melbourne, but intensely humid and sapping the energy of even the fittest of players. And reports of fierce winds at Flushing Meadows are commonplace.

So, while the Australian Open and US Open share some basic similarities, deeper analysis reveals that, in reality, they aren’t that alike at all – one of the reasons that so few players have won both in the same year.

Could that change in 2026?