Sixteen-year-old Cruz Hewitt was named Male Junior Athlete of the Year. He competed in all four junior Grand Slams this season, securing victories at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon. \u201c[Playing at those junior Grand Slams] helped a lot,\u201d Hewitt said. \u201cThe great experience with all the crowds and the different environments and places you play at, it helped my game a lot, and I learned a lot to take it into the men’s tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teenager earned a wildcard into the Australian Open qualifiers at the start of the 2025 season, where he fell in the first round to former Indian Wells runner-up Nikoloz Basilashvili. However, by November\u2014just a month ago\u2014he secured his first ATP victory at the Brisbane Challenger, defeating world No. 192 James McCabe.<\/p>\n
Recently, Cruz also teamed up with his father, Lleyton Hewitt, who came out of retirement to play doubles at the Sydney Pro Tour. The duo debuted with a win at Ken Rosewall Arena before bowing out in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Emerson Jones dominates women\u2019s tennis<\/p>\n
The biggest breakout star of the year was Emerson Jones, who was awarded Female Junior Athlete of the Year. The former junior No. 1 experienced explosive growth in 2025, starting the year at world No. 118 and finishing the season at No. 32, establishing herself as Australia\u2019s top-ranked woman.<\/p>\n
According to the season recap, the 19-year-old claimed two WTA titles this year: one on clay in Marrakech (defeating the experienced Jaqueline Cristian) and another on grass at the Eastbourne International (overcoming Filipino star Alexandra Eala). \u201cAs soon as I hit junior world No.1, it was kind of just like, \u2018I think I should move into women’s now and start focusing on that\u2019. Especially as I am getting older,\u201d Jones said after receiving her award. \u201cPlaying juniors with the girls, they are great players, and they also play women’s too. The top juniors are no different to the women.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Maya Joint won her second WTA title at Eastbourne Open<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 success is also attributed to her coach, Chris Mahony, who was honored on the night with the Coaching Excellence \u2013 Performance award. \u201cShe had a very consistent 12 months,\u201d Mahony commented. \u201cYou see a lot of young players have ups and downs through the course of a year on the different surfaces. [She] has been very consistent on all surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Minaur claims fourth Newcombe medal<\/p>\n
The night\u2019s highest honor, the Newcombe Medal, went to Alex de Minaur. This prestigious award recognizes the elite player with the most outstanding performance of the season who also reflects the integrity and sportsmanship of an ambassador for the sport. This marks the fourth time De Minaur has won the medal, and his third consecutive win (2019, 2023, 2024, 2025).<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank – first of all John Newcombe himself. It\u2019s an incredible honour to receive this medal. Thank you to everyone involved with an incredible event,\u201d De Minaur said. \u201cIt’s been a great year. I’m very proud of everything that I’ve achieved. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without an incredible team around me that continuously pushed me very hard to continue to try and achieve and get the most out of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Newcombe praised De Minaur during the ceremony: \u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting ride for Alex. Just watching him, he\u2019s gradually kept up the pressure, creeping up the rankings and now he\u2019s in the top 10, every year it\u2019s a better performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
2025 Australian Tennis Awards Winners ListAward CategoryWinner(s)Newcombe MedalAlex de Minaur (NSW)Male Junior Athlete of the YearCruz Hewitt (NSW)Female Junior Athlete of the YearEmerson Jones (Qld)Spirit of Tennis AwardAllan StoneCoaching Excellence \u2013 Performance (presented by Culture Amp)Chris Mahony (Qld)Coaching Excellence \u2013 ClubOwen Peemoller (ACT)Coaching Excellence \u2013 DevelopmentDes Tyson (Vic)Most Outstanding Athlete with a Disability (presented by ANZ)Hunter Thompson (Qld) & Jin Woodman (Vic)Most Outstanding Club (presented by Howden)Oakleigh Tennis Club (Vic)Most Outstanding SchoolMaitland Lutheran School (SA)Most Outstanding TournamentMDTC Open Championships (SA)Excellence in OfficiatingPhillip Goodman (Vic)Volunteer Achievement AwardKirsty Cole (NSW)Most Outstanding 35+ Tennis MasterRos Balodis (ACT)Most Outstanding Inclusion InitiativeHobart Out Tennis Club (Tas)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis Australia hosted its annual awards ceremony this week at the Palladium Ballroom at Melbourne\u2019s Crown Casino, celebrating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,133163,80257,82,593,621],"class_list":["post-336051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cruz-hewitt","tag-maya-joint","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}