2026 Brisbane International Final Results: Medvedev Ends His Curse, Sabalenka Makes History

The 2026 Brisbane International wrapped up on Sunday, January 11, at Pat Rafter Arena, and it delivered exactly the kind of drama tennis fans hope for in the first big tune-up event before the Australian Open. Over four finals across singles and doubles, familiar names reaffirmed their status at the top of the game, while a couple of upsets reminded everyone that January tennis in Queensland rarely goes entirely to script.

Held from January 4 to 11 on the hard courts of the Queensland Tennis Centre in Tennyson, this year’s tournament was the 15th edition of the Brisbane International and served as an important form guide ahead of the year’s first Grand Slam, which begins in Melbourne on January 18.

Men’s Singles: Medvedev Finally Gets His Brisbane Trophy

Daniil Medvedev capped off a strong return to form by winning the men’s singles title, beating American Brandon Nakashima 6–2, 7–6(7–1) in the final. For Medvedev, the win was more than just another trophy — it closed a chapter that had been open since 2019, when he was the runner-up in Brisbane. Coming back seven years later to finally lift the title clearly meant something to him.

“I said then that I would try and come back and win it,” Medvedev said afterward. “I came back seven or eight years later, and I’m happy to hold the trophy.”

The match itself lasted one hour and 36 minutes, and it followed a pattern that will feel familiar to Medvedev fans: a dominant start followed by a tense finish. He raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first set and closed it out comfortably. In the second set, he again looked in control at 4-2 and later served for the match at 5-4, but Nakashima — playing in just his tournament debut in Brisbane after a straight-sets upset over No. 2 seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina — saved two match points and forced a tiebreak. Medvedev responded by dominating the breaker to seal the win.

The title was Medvedev’s 22nd on the ATP Tour, and notably, every one of those 22 titles has come at a different event — a rare and impressive stat for a player of his caliber. He also became the first No. 1 seed to win in Brisbane since Roger Federer in 2015, and the victory extended his head-to-head record over Nakashima to 3-0. It capped a strong start to the season for the Russian, who had already snapped a title drought in Almaty back in October while working with new coaches Thomas Johansson and Rohan Goetzke.

Nakashima, for his part, leaves Brisbane with plenty to be encouraged about. It was his fourth tour-level final, and he didn’t drop a set on his way there. He sits at No. 31 in the ATP rankings and is still chasing his second career title, having won in San Diego back in 2022.

The tournament’s defending champion, Jiří Lehečka, wasn’t around to defend his crown — he retired in the second round due to injury during his match against Sebastian Korda.

Women’s Singles: Sabalenka Defends Her Crown in Style

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka made an emphatic statement heading into the Australian Open, successfully defending her Brisbane title with a 6–4, 6–3 win over Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the final. The match took just one hour and 17 minutes, and remarkably, Sabalenka did not drop a single set across the entire tournament.

This was Sabalenka’s third straight appearance in the Brisbane final, and her back-to-back title run put her in rare company. She became only the third woman to successfully defend the Brisbane title, joining Serena Williams (who did it in 2014) and Karolína Plíšková (2020) — and she’s the first player to reach three consecutive finals at the event since it began in 2009.

The win was also the 22nd WTA Tour singles title of Sabalenka’s career, moving her ahead of Victoria Azarenka for third among active players on the all-time list.

There was an extra layer of tension around this final. Sabalenka celebrated by kissing both her biceps after match point, a gesture widely seen as a response to earlier comments from Kostyuk about testosterone levels among players — remarks the Ukrainian has said were taken out of context. When asked about it afterward, Sabalenka downplayed any intended message, saying she was simply “making fun with my team” after hitting a series of powerful winners during the match. She also used the on-court interview to poke fun at her boyfriend, Georgios Frangulis, hinting that she was still waiting for a proposal, much to the crowd’s amusement.

For Kostyuk, the run to the final was still a big statement about her own form. Ranked No. 26, she arrived in Brisbane fresh off wins over three top-10 players — Amanda Anisimova, Mirra Andreeva, and Jessica Pegula — en route to her fourth WTA-level final. She dispatched world No. 6 Pegula in the semifinal in well under an hour before running into a Sabalenka who, as Kostyuk quickly discovered, “imposes a different kind of pressure” on the court.

Men’s Doubles: Cabral and Miedler Stun the World No. 1 Pair

In one of the tournament’s bigger surprises, third seeds Francisco Cabral and Lucas Miedler knocked off top-seeded, defending champions and world No. 1 pairing Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool of Great Britain, winning 6–3, 3–6, [10–8].

The result denied Cash and Glasspool the chance to become the first team to successfully defend the Brisbane men’s doubles title — a notable achievement given they were the reigning ATP Tour Year-End No. 1 doubles team and had won seven titles in 2025 alone, including a historic Wimbledon crown as the first all-British pair to win there since 1936.

For Cabral and Miedler, the win extended their partnership’s winning streak to eight straight matches, following an earlier title in Athens at the end of 2025. It was the sixth career ATP Tour doubles title for Cabral and the 11th for Miedler, and their fourth as a team since first pairing up in Marrakech in April.

Cabral was full of praise for their opponents after the match: “Julian, Lloyd, you guys were the best in the world last year, you’re still No. 1 in the world. You guys play unbelievable, you make it so, so tough for us.” Cash was equally gracious in defeat, congratulating the winners on a strong finish to their season and wishing them luck for what’s ahead.

Women’s Doubles: Hsieh and Ostapenko Team Up for the Title

Rounding out the championship weekend, Hsieh Su-wei of Chinese Taipei and Latvia’s Jeļena Ostapenko won the women’s doubles title, defeating Spain’s Cristina Bucșa and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6–2, 6–1 in a lopsided final.

It was the first title for Hsieh and Ostapenko as a pairing, but not the first Brisbane trophy for either of them individually — Hsieh had previously won the event with a different partner in 2020, and Ostapenko did the same in 2024. That gave both players their second Brisbane International doubles crown, just with different partners each time.

The reigning champions, Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider, didn’t get the chance to defend their title as a pair, since Shnaider skipped this year’s tournament. Andreeva instead partnered with Ekaterina Alexandrova, but the duo was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunić.

Setting the Stage for Melbourne

With all four Brisbane titles decided, attention now shifts firmly to the Australian Open, which starts January 18 in Melbourne. Medvedev, a three-time Australian Open runner-up, will arrive with fresh confidence after finally breaking through in Brisbane, while Sabalenka goes in as the form favorite on the women’s side, chasing what would be her third Australian Open title in four years. Both performances in Brisbane suggest the year’s first Grand Slam is shaping up to be a compelling one.