The China Mail - Five sports stars to watch in 2025

AFP Sport looks at five young pretenders to keep an eye on over the next 12 months:

Formula 1 - Oliver Bearman

The 19-year-old, who will race alongside Esteban Ocon at Haas, is not going to win the 2025 Formula One title but this will be the season when the young Briton lays down a marker for years to come.

A graduate of the Ferrari driver academy, Bearman made his F1 debut as a late replacement for Ferrari's Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia in 2024. Driving a mature race, he finished seventh, provoking excitement over another young talent joining the grid.

"I always feel like I'm at home when I get in an F1 car, which is nice. And every time I get in an F1 car, I feel more and more at home. It's a good feeling," he said.

Athletics - Sembo Almayew

Ethiopia has a wealth of middle and long-distance runners but 19-year-old Almayew is a star in the making.

In some ways she has already arrived: at the Paris Olympics she was outshone by another youngster, 20-year-old Kenyan Faith Cherotich, but still finished fifth in the 3000m steeplechase.

She then went on to win gold in the U20 World Athletics Championships in Lima in a new championship record.

That resulted in her winning the World Athletics Rising Star for 2024 awards.

The only fly in the ointment has been the visa problems that Ethiopians currently have with the EU which resulted in Almayew being denied the chance to compete at the Diamond League Finals in September.

Hopefully, she will be able to clear the visa hurdle next year as the World Athletics Championships are in Tokyo.

Tennis - Mirra Andreeva

The 17-year-old Russian already served warning of her precocious talent when she reached the last 16 of Wimbledon in 2023 and then again at the Australian Open in 2024, only to eclipse that by reaching the semi-finals at the French Open.

"I definitely knew she was a young player to watch, she was beating very top players," said coach Conchita Martinez. "I did my homework and immediately could see she has a lot of potential, everybody can see."

Andreeva's first WTA title arrived in Iasi, Romania, before she added an Olympic silver medal in doubles in Paris.

Now ranked at 16, that record suggests she is ready to challenge Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka for the No.1 ranking.

Baseball - Roki Sasaki

It is 60 years since Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese player to feature in Major League Baseball but the arrival this season of another pitcher Roki Sasaki could prove almost as exciting.

The 23-year-old from Iwate, who regularly exceeds 100mph on pitches, has been described in the US media as a "generational talent on the mound".

In 2022, he threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts, nearly repeating the feat a week later with eight more perfect innings.

He has been linked with Los Angeles Dodgers, where he would team up with countryman Shohei Ohtani, but the Chiba Lottes Marines pitcher may have to show some patience as he is too young to sign directly to an MLB contract.

Cricket - Vaibhav Suryavanshi

Eyebrows were raised in November when Rajasthan Royals bid $130,500 for 13-year-old schoolboy Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who could become the youngest-ever to play in the money-spinning IPL.

The teenage batter's rise has been swift. He made his domestic debut aged 12 in the Ranji Trophy in January, then was selected for India's Under-19 squad against a touring Australia team, promptly hitting a 58-ball century.

"He is the kind of player who has come on Earth to play cricket, he settles for nothing else," said his state coach, Pramod Kumar.

M.Chau--ThChM