Date with Alcaraz and engaged to Sofie: Hanfmann’s Australian Open is hot | ATP Tour

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Date with Alcaraz and engaged to Sofie: Hanfmann’s Australian Open is hot

German provides details in his special pre-tournament moment

January 20, 2026

On Wednesday afternoon Yannick Hanfmann will take to the court inside the Rod Laver Arena for a big chance in the second round of the Australian Open against the World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz. But win or lose against the Spanish, Hanfmann will leave Australia at the end of his journey as a winner.

It all started when Emil Ruusuvuori withdrew in the first big game of the season. Hanfmann, who was supposed to compete in the qualifiers, earned a spot in the main event and suddenly had an extra week to prepare. Thursday looked to be a day weather-wise, but it will be a day the German will remember for the rest of his life.

Hanfmann was in Melbourne with his girlfriend, Sofie, his sister, Ini, Ini’s fiancee and some friends. When they woke up, they decided to rent a car to the zoo and then went to Red Bluff Lookout, less than an hour away from where all eyes will be on Melbourne Park.

“It’s good, actually. We were very lucky,” Hanfmann told ATPTour.com. “We were driving to the zoo. It was raining and it got a little bit cooler, the weather was really nice. It was very windy, so maybe the bad weather was blown away. The zoo was really nice, we saw koalas and quokkas and wallabies and kangaroos, all that. That was really fun.”

But that was just a prelude to a special moment. Hanfmann and company went to a special place and picked up the ingredients for a picnic, when the number 102 player in the PIF ATP Rankings came to fruition. It was the perfect place for what he was waiting for.

“I knew right then that I wanted to do it, and I told my sister and her boyfriend that they should probably go to the bathroom,” said Hanfmann, who then proposed to Sofie. They are engaged. “It was great. He was so happy.”

The 34-year-old’s journey Down Under was just beginning. He earned just the second Australian Open main-draw win of his career against Zachary Svajda according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index to earn a rematch against Alcaraz.

“It definitely feels good. I had that feeling that maybe things would work out for me, but you never know,” Hanfmann said. “I’m sitting here, and it feels good.”

This will not be the Antwerp resident’s first chance against Alcaraz. Their first meeting took place in 2019 when the Spaniard was only 16 years old at an ATP Challenger event.

“I played him in Sevilla in the night session, and I lost 7-6, 7-6,” Hanfmann recalled. “I was there with my fiancée now, and Sofie, actually, and we were like, ‘Okay, this guy is good’, and now he’s number 1 in the world.

“At that time, he was already very hungry. I felt like he was very focused, very focused and focused on it. You can see that the determination was there, and the game … He was a little bit younger. His serve was not that good, but he was already making a lot of balls. He was already playing a tough type. I don’t think I played a bad game and I had lost, I was 1 year old, I was already 6 years old. like, ‘How can I lose?’ But after a few years, it makes sense.”

Alcaraz will lead the Lexus ATP Head2Head 1-0 in their meeting, but Hanfmann will bring something different as he starts working with a new coach, Petar Popovic, in 2025.

“It’s obvious that he’s an active person, and he absolutely loves tennis, he knows a lot, he watches everything. [He has] a lot of knowledge about a lot of different players, actors too,” Hanfmann said. “I can learn a lot from him. We changed my serve, and that was a big change, a difference maker in the last few months because serving is important to our game, and we changed the approach a little bit. So that was really good. So far, so good.”

This is far from Hanfmann’s first moment on the big stage against a top opponent. But that doesn’t make it special.

“I’m 34. I played a lot of them early on [in tournaments]. I’d like to play them later,” Hanfmann said. “I always say to myself, ‘Okay, you’re going to have to beat them at some point’. It’s hard to beat these guys. But yes, of course, on the other hand, it’s a big game… That’s a big thing, isn’t it? That’s what we play for.”