AO Hacks returns in the countdown in Australian Open 2025, providing fans with player insights to maximise their day at the tennis.
When the weekly ATP and WTA rankings were released on 1 January 2024, none of the players you’re soon to read about were ranked in the top 100.
In fact, some of them were so far down the list that casual fans may not even have been aware of them.
But thanks to notable results, they’ve all soared in the rankings to finish 2024 inside the top 100, all but ensuring them entry into the main draw at Australian Open 2025.
Meet the biggest improvers among the top 100 who will look to maintain their momentum at Melbourne Park in January.
Naomi Osaka (JPN)
Ranking at start of 2024: Unranked
Ranking at end of 2024: 60
Naomi Osaka’s highly-anticipated comeback in January, after giving birth to daughter Shai in July 2023, set the tone for a season where she re-established herself as a legitimate contender.
She might not have hit her heights of pre-motherhood – she won four Grand Slam titles, including two Australian Opens – but she proved herself as dangerous as ever.
She almost caused the upset of the season when she held match point at Roland Garros against Iga Swiatek, before the world No.1 escaped and ultimately won her third straight French title.
Osaka also improved her game and results considerably on the ‘natural’ surfaces, reaching the fourth round on Rome’s clay and the quarters on ‘s-Hertogenbosch grass.
Elsewhere, she reached the WTA 1000 Doha quarterfinals, scored six top-20 wins – including over 10th-ranked Jelena Ostapenko at the US Open – and closed her season strongly with a last-16 finish in Beijing.
Jacob Fearnley (GBR)
Ranking at start of 2024: 646
Ranking at end of 2024: 99
Difference: +547
While the biggest names were Down Under competing at AO 2024, Fearnley was ranked outside the top 600 and playing an ITF 25K event in Luxembourg. He qualified for that event and won the title – seven straight match wins that set the tone for his season.
The 23-year-old Brit, born in Edinburgh, did not compete professionally for the next five months as he played his fifth and final season of college tennis for Texas Christian University.
But when he returned to action in the grass season, he made an immediate impact, winning the Nottingham Challenger and then reaching the second round of Wimbledon, stretching Novak Djokovic to four sets.
Fearney won three more Challenger titles later in 2024 and finished the season with a brilliant 45-9 record, cracking the top 100 in late September.
Amanda Anisimova (USA)
Ranking at start of 2024: 373
Ranking at end of 2024: 36
Difference: +337
Anisimova is already a known quantity, bursting to prominence as a teenager with her Roland Garros semifinal run in 2019, after also reaching the second week of AO 2019.
But when the American decided to take a mental health break in early 2023, nobody knew when she would be back, or how she would play on he return.
Those questions were answered when she reappeared in Auckland and the Australian Open in January, ending an eight-month hiatus.
She’d slipped as low as 442nd when she arrived at Melbourne Park, before she outplayed 13th seed Liudmila Samsonova and former world No.2 Paula Badosa to reach the fourth round.
Anisimova, who possesses one of the finest backhands in the game, later upset four consecutive top-20 players – including Aryna Sabalenka – to reach the WTA 1000 Toronto final.
That vaulted her back inside the top 50, before a third-round finish in Beijing pushed her even higher.
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (FRA)
Ranking at start of 2024: 205
Ranking at end of 2024: 31
Difference: +174
Of all the players on this list, Mpetshi Perricard is best placed to be seeded at AO 2025 – staggering progression for someone who this time last year was ranked outside the top 200.
The towering Frenchman, 203cm tall, was a promising junior yet little-known outside France – where he made his Slam main-draw debut at Roland Garros in 2023 – until this year.
He reached the final round of AO 2024 qualifying, but despite sustained success on the Challenger circuit, he didn’t play a tour-level match until May.
That was at the ATP tournament in Lyon – where he won the title as a 117th-ranked wildcard. This catapulted the 21-year-old inside the top 100, just over a month before he stormed to the fourth round at Wimbledon.
The deeper into the season he travelled, the better he got. In October, Perricard rained down aces, and averaged a second-serve speed of more than 200km/h, to win the ATP 500 title in Basel.
His win-loss record in 2024 was 48-25.
Emma Raducanu (GBR)
Ranking at start of 2024: 301
Ranking at end of 2024: 59
Difference: +242
The injury-plagued British star made promising progress in 2024, despite being ranked outside the top 300 as recently as April.
Raducanu famously won the US Open as a teenage qualifier in 2021, and peaked at world No.10 the following year.
She has since struggled to gain any kind of momentum as back, wrist, ankle and foot injuries stalled her, but she reminded everybody of her upside in a restorative 2024 season.
After just falling short of the third round at AO 2024, she reached the last 32 at Indian Wells and quarters in Stuttgart. She also thrived on home soil, reaching the Nottingham semis and Eastbourne quarters, plus second week at Wimbledon, to post a 7-3 record on grass – including two top-10 wins.
Her fourth-round finish at the All England Club was her best Grand Slam result in three years.
Raducanu elevated her level when representing her country, going a perfect 5-0 in Billie Jean King Cup singles rubbers this year.
Shang Juncheng (CHN)
Ranking at start of 2024: 183
Ranking at end of 2024: 50
Difference: +133
The Chinese teenager has always been a highly-touted prospect, especially when he reached the second round at Australian Open 2023 on his Grand Slam debut.
But he took it to a new level in 2024, a season highlighted by his first career ATP title in Chengdu.
At Grand Slam level he was impressive, thanks to third-round finishes in both Melbourne and New York. And he won more than 40 matches this season – the biggest coming over top seed Ben Shelton to reach the Atlanta quarters.
Shang, a slightly-built lefty, reached three tour-level semifinals in 2024, continuing on to the final in Chengdu where he stunned world No.19 and top seed Lorenzo Musetti in the final.
"It's really, really special for me," said Shang, who peaked at world No.47 in October. "Especially to do it at home.”
Caroline Wozniacki (DEN)
Ranking at start of 2024: 256
Ranking at end of 2024: 72
Difference: +184
The former world No.1, an Australian Open champion in 2018, is now a mother of two. But that certainly did not stop the Danish star from thriving on the big stage.
She got better as her Grand Slam season unfolded, improving on her AO 2024 second-round finish with a run to the third round at Wimbledon. She then returned to the fourth round of the US Open for the second straight year.
Elsewhere, Wozniacki was a quarterfinalist at Indian Wells and scored impressive wins over Elina Sviotlina, Leylah Fernandez and Donna Vekic.
After beginning the season outside the world’s top 250, the 34-year-old was back inside the top 70 by July.
Jakub Mensik (CZE)
Ranking at start of 2024: 167
Ranking at end of 2024: 48
Difference: +119
Mensik might be just 19 years old, but the strapping Czech plays with a power and composure beyond his years.
The AO 2022 junior finalist won more than 40 matches this year, a highlight being an appearance in his first ATP final in Doha.
Later in the season he notched back-to-back quarterfinals in Shanghai and Vienna, where he pushed top-10 opponents Novak Djokovic and Alex de Minaur to three sets, respectively.
The Vienna result, which he achieved as a qualifier, elevated him inside the top 50 for the first time, progress helped by four top-10 wins in 2024.
He closed the season by qualifying in third place for the Next Gen ATP Finals, an event open to the world’s top eight men aged 21 and under.
Lulu Sun (NZL)
Ranking at start of 2024: 214
Ranking at end of 2024: 40
Difference: +174
Coverage of Lulu Sun’s Wimbledon run blew up in New Zealand, where she was born to a Chinese mother and Croatian father.
The 23-year-old, who came through the US college system, translated her powerful, aggressive game perfectly to the lawns of The All England Club.
There, she advanced to the quarterfinals after beginning in the qualifying rounds, a run of seven straight match wins that included upsets of No.8 seed Zheng Qinwen and home favourite Emma Raducanu on Centre Court.
MORE: Lulu Sun, Kiwi qualifier with global connections, into Wimbledon quarters
That result boosted her to the cusp of the top 50, and she kept her momentum going, advancing to her first WTA final in Monterrey in August.
Earlier in 2024 Sun won a pair of big ITF titles and ended the season with almost 40 match wins.
Yunchaokete Bu (CHN)
Ranking at start of 2024: 171
Ranking at end of 2024: 65
Difference: +106
China had no shortage of tennis stories to celebrate in 2024, and another success came in the form of Yunchaokete.
In the first seven months of the season, the 22-year-old reached four ATP Challenger finals, winning two. He then won three rounds of qualifying at the US Open to make his Grand Slam main-draw debut.
Those results put him on the brink of the top 100, and it was on home soil where he rose further; back-to-back semifinals at ATP events in Hangzhou (250) and Beijing (500) helped him crack the top 70.
He scored his biggest win of the season, over world No.6 Andrey Rublev, in the Beijing quarters.
According to his ATP bio, his “full name is Buyunchaokete, but (he) goes by Bu or his American name, Bert.”