Australian Open

Australian Open
Official web
Location	Melbourne  Australia
Venue	Melbourne Park
Surface	Plexicushion
Men's draw	128S / 128Q / 64D
Women's draw	128S / 96Q / 64D
Prize money	A$20,600,000 [1]
Grand Slam
Australian Open French Open (Roland Garros) Wimbledon US Open
2009 Australian Open

The Australian Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments held each year. It is held each January at Melbourne Park. The tournament was held for the first time in 1905 and was contested on grass from 1905 to 1987. Since 1988, the tournament has been held on hard courts. Mats Wilander is the only male player to have won the tournament on both grass and hard courts.

Like all other Grand Slam tournaments, there are men's and women's singles competitions; men's, women's, and mixed doubles; and junior's and master's competitions.

The two main courts used in the tournament are Rod Laver Arena and Hisense Arena and feature retractable roofs, which can be shut in case of rain or extreme heat. It is the only Grand Slam tournament that features indoor play. However, work has already commenced on a retractable roof for Wimbledon's Centre Court, which is expected to be completed by 2009.

Held in the middle of the Australian summer, the Australian Open is famous for its notoriously hot days. An extreme-heat policy is put into play when temperatures (and humidity) reach dangerous levels.

The Australian Open typically has very high attendance, with the 2008 Australian Open achieving the highest ever day/night attendance record for any Grand Slam tournament of 62,885.^[2] The event is worth around £38 million to the Australian economy.^[3]

In 2008, the Rebound Ace surface, which had been in place for the past 20 years at Melbourne Park, was replaced by a cushioned acrylic surface known as Plexicushion. The main benefits of the new surface are better consistency and less retention of heat (because of a thinner top layer). This change was accompanied by changes in the surfaces of all lead-up tournaments to the Australian Open. The change was controversial, primarily because of the new surface's similarity to DecoTurf, the surface already being used by the US Open.

The most recent tournament was held from 14 January to 27 January 2008. The singles winners were Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Recent attendances 2 Trophies and prize money 3 Records 4 Champions 5 References 6 External links

History

The Australian Open is managed by Tennis Australia, formerly the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA), and was first played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in St Kilda Road, Melbourne in 1905.^[4]

The tournament was first known as The Australasian Championships and then became the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969.^[5] Since 1905, the Australian Open has been staged in five Australian and two New Zealand cities as follows: Melbourne (50 times), Sydney (17 times), Adelaide (14 times), Brisbane (8 times), Perth (3 times), Christchurch (in 1906), and Hastings (in 1912).^[5] In 1972, when it was decided to stage the tournament in the same city each year, the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club was selected because Melbourne attracted the biggest patronage.^[4]

Melbourne Park (formerly Flinders Park) was constructed in time for the 1988 tournament to meet the demands of the evolving tournament that had outgrown Kooyong's capacity. The move to Melbourne Park was an immediate success, with a 90 per cent increase in attendance in 1988 (266,436) on the previous year at Kooyong (140,000).^[6]

Because of its geographic remoteness very few foreign players entered this tournament at the beginning. In the 1920s, the trip by ship from Europe to Australia took about 45 days. The first tennis players who came by aircraft were the U.S. Davis Cup players in November 1946.^[6] Even inside the country, many players could not travel easily. When the tournament was held in Perth, no persons from Victoria or New South Wales crossed by train, a distance of approximately 3,000 kilometres between the east and west coasts. In Christchurch in 1906, of a small field of 10 players, only two Australians attended, and the tournament was won by a New Zealander.^[7]

The first tournaments of the Australasian Championships suffered from the competition of the other Australasian tournaments, and before 1905 all Australian states and New Zealand had their own championships, the first being organised in 1880 in Melbourne and called the Championship of the Colony of Victoria (later become the Championship of Victoria).^[8]. In those years, the best two players by far, from "Down Under" the Australian Norman Brookes (whose name is now written on the men's singles cup) and the New Zealander Anthony Wilding, almost did not play this tournament. Brookes came once and won in 1911 and Wilding entered and won the competition twice (1906 and 1909). Their meetings in the Victorian Championships (or at Wimbledon) were the summits that helped to determine the best Australasian players. Even when the Australasian Championships were held in Hastings, New Zealand, in 1912, Wilding, though three times Wimbledon champion, did not come back to his home country. It was a recurring problem for all players of the era. Brookes went to Europe only three times, where he reached the Wimbledon Challenge Round once and then won Wimbledon twice. Thus, many players had never played the Austral(as)ian amateur or open championships: the Renshaws, the Dohertys, William Larned, Maurice McLoughlin, Beals Wright, Bill Johnston, Bill Tilden, René Lacoste, Henri Cochet, Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Pancho Gonzales, Budge Patty, Manuel Santana, Jan Kodes and others, while Brookes, Ellsworth Vines, Jaroslav Drobny, Manuel Orantes, Ilie Năstase at 35 years old, and Bjorn Borg came just once.

Beginning in 1969, when the first Australian Open was held on the Milton Courts at Brisbane, the tournament was open to all players, including professionals who were not allowed to play the traditional circuit.^[9] Nevertheless, except for the 1969 and 1971 tournaments, many of the best players missed this championship until 1982, because of the remoteness, the inconvenient dates (around Christmas and New Year's Day), and the low prize money — in 1970 the National Tennis League (NTL), which employed Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Andres Gimeno, Pancho Gonzales, Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle, prevented its players from entering the tournament because the guarantees were insufficient, and the tournament was ultimately won by Arthur Ashe.^[10]

In 1983, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, and Mats Wilander entered the tournament, with Wilander having to play the Davis Cup at Kooyong a few days after the tournament. He won both the Australian Open and the Davis Cup.^[11][12] Following the 1983 Australian Open, the International Tennis Federation prompted the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia to change the site of the tournament, because the Kooyong stadium was then inappropriate to serve such a big event, and in 1988 the tournament was first held at Flinders Park (later renamed Melbourne Park) on Rebound Ace.^[13]

Before the Melbourne Park stadium era, tournament dates fluctuated as well, in particular in the early years because of the climate of each site or exceptional events. For example, just after World War I, the 1919 tournament was held in January 1920 (the 1920 tournament was played in March) and the 1923 tournament in Brisbane took place in August when the weather was not too hot and wet. After a first 1977 tournament was held in December 1976 – January 1977, the organisers chose to move the next tournament forward a few days, then a second 1977 tournament was played (ended on 31 December) but this failed to attract the best players. From 1982 to 1985, the tournament was played in mid-December, then it was decided to move the next tournament to mid-January (January 1987), thus there was no tournament in 1986. Since 1987, the Australian Open date has not changed.

Another change of venue was mooted in 2008, with New South Wales authorities making clear their desire to re-locate the tournament to Glebe Island (Sydney) in 2016, when the Melbourne contract runs out. Wayne Kayler-Thomson, the head ofthe Victorian Events Industry Council, was adamant that Melbourne should retain the event, and, in a scathing attack of the New South Wales authorities, said that, "It is disappointing that NSW cannot be original and seek their own events instead of trying to cannibalize other Australian cities."^[3]

Recent attendances

• 2008 - 605,735^[14]
• 2007 - 554,858^[15]
• 2006 - 550,550
• 2005 - 543,873^[16]
• 2004 - 521,691

Trophies and prize money

Names of the winners are inscribed on the perpetual trophy Cups.

• The Women's Singles winner is presented with the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup.
• The Men's Singles winner is presented with the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup.

In 2008 the prize money awarded in the Men's and Women's singles tournaments was equal and distributed as follows^[17]:

• 1st Round: A$19,040
• 2nd Round: A$30,250
• 3rd Round: A$50,000
• 4th Round: A$85,625
• Quarter finalist: A$171,250
• Semi finalist: A$342,500
• Runners-up: A$685,000
• Winners: A$1,370,000 (approx GBP£635,000) (approx EUR€791,200) (approx US$1,197,739.20)

Records

Record	Open Era*	Player(s)	Count	Years
Men since 1905
Winner of most Men's Singles titles	Before 1969:	Roy Emerson	6	1961, 1963-67
		Jack Crawford Ken Rosewall	4	1931-33, 1935 1953, 1955, 1971-72
	After 1968:	Andre Agassi	4	1995, 2000-01, 2003
		Mats Wilander Roger Federer	3	1983-84, 1988 2004, 2006-07
Winner of most consecutive Men's Singles titles	Before 1969:	Roy Emerson	5	1963-67
	After 1968:	Ken Rosewall Guillermo Vilas Johan Kriek Mats Wilander Stefan Edberg Ivan Lendl Jim Courier Andre Agassi Roger Federer	2	1971-72 1978-79 1981-82 1983-84 1985-87[18] 1989-90 1992-93 2000-01 2006-07
Winner of most Men's Doubles titles	Before 1969:	Adrian Quist & John Bromwich	8	1938-40, 1946-50
		John Newcombe & Tony Roche	5	1965, 1967, 1971, 1976 - 1973 John Newcombe with Mal Anderson, 1976 (December) Tony Roche with Arthur Ashe
	After 1968:	Mark Edmondson	4	1980-81 (with Kim Warwick), 1983 (with Paul McNamee) 1984 (with Sherwood Stewart)
		John Newcombe & Tony Roche Kim Warwick Todd Woodbridge Jonas Björkman	3	see above 1978 (with Wojtek Fibak), 1980-81 1992, 1996 (with Mark Woodforde, 2001 (with Jonas Björkman) 1998 (with Jacco Eltingh), 1999 (with Patrick Rafter), 2001
Winner of most consecutive Men's Doubles titles	Before 1969:	Adrian Quist & John Bromwich	8	1938-40, 1946-50[19]
	After 1968:	Mark Edmondson & Kim Warwick Mark Edmondson Rick Leach & Jim Pugh Fabrice Santoro & Michael Llodra Bob Bryan & Mike Bryan	2	1980-81 1983 (with Paul McNamee), 1984 (with Sherwood Stewart), 1988-89 2003-04 2006-07
Winner of most Mixed Doubles titles - Men	Before 1969:	Colin Long	4	1963, 1965-66, 1968 (with Nancye Wynne Bolton)
	After 1968:	Owen Davidson	4	1940, 1946-1948 (with Billie Jean King)
Winner of most Championships (total: singles, doubles, mixed) - Men	Before 1969:	Jack Crawford	11	1929-1935 (4 singles, 4 doubles, 3 mixed)
	After 1968:	Jim Pugh	5	1988-90 (2 doubles, 3 mixed)
Women since 1922
Winner of most Women's Singles titles	Before 1968:	Margaret Court	7	1960-66
		Nancye Wynne Bolton	6	1937, 1940, 1946-48, 1951
	After 1968:	Margaret Court Evonne Goolagong-Cawley Steffi Graf // Monica Seles	4	1969-71, 1973 1974-76, 1977 1988-90, 1994 1991-93, 1996
Winner of most consecutive Women's Singles titles	Before 1969:	Margaret Court	7	1960-66
	After 1968:	Margaret Court Evonne Goolagong-Cawley Steffi Graf // Monica Seles Martina Hingis	3	1969-71 1974-76 1988-90 1991-93 1997-99
Winner of most Women's Doubles titles	Before 1969:	Thelma Coyne Long	13	1936-40, 1947-49, 1951-52 (with Nancye Wynne Bolton), 1954, 1956, 1958 (with Mary Bevis Hawton)
		Nancye Wynne Bolton	10	1936-40, 1947-49, 1951-52
	After 1968:	/ Martina Navrátilová	8	1980 (with Betsy Nagelsen), 1982-85, 1987-89 (with Pam Shriver)
Winner of most consecutive Women's Doubles titles	Before 1969:	Thelma Coyne Long Nancye Wynne Bolton	5	1936-40
	After 1968:	/ Martina Navrátilová & Pam Shriver	7	1982-85, 1987-89
Winner of most Mixed Doubles titles - women	Before 1969:	Daphne Akhurst Cozens Nancye Wynne Bolton Thelma Coyne Long Margaret Court	4	1924-25 (with John Willard), 1928 (with Jean Borotra), 1929 (with Gar Moon) 1940, 1946-48 (with Colin Long) 1951-51, 1955 (with George Worthington), 1954 (with Rex Hartwig) 1963-64 (with Ken Fletcher), 1965 (with John Newcombe), 1969 (with Marty Riessen)
	After 1968:	Jana Novotná Larisa Neiland	2	1988-89 (with Jim Pugh) 1994 (with Andrei Olhovskiy), 1996 (with Mark Woodforde)
Winner of most Championships (total: singles, doubles, mixed) - women	Before 1969:	Margaret Court	22	1960-1973 (11 singles, 7 doubles, 4 mixed)
	After 1968:	/ Martina Navrátilová	12	1980-2003 (3 singles, 8 doubles, 1 mixed)
Miscellaneous
Youngest winner(single)	Men:	Ken Rosewall	18 years and 2 months
	Women:	Martina Hingis	16 years and 3 months

• Unlike the other 3 Grand Slam tournaments (which became open in 1968), the Australian tournament didn't become open to professionals until 1969.

Champions

Main articles listed by event:

• Men's Singles
• Women's Singles
• Men's Doubles
• Women's Doubles
• Mixed Doubles

References

External links

• Official Site
• Australian Open Tennis Guide
• Tennis Australia website
• Australian Open Tennis
• Satellite image of the venue (Google Maps)

Preceded by US Open

Grand Slam Tournament January

Succeeded by French Open

v • d • e Australasian / Australian Championships (Amateur Era) 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 WWI WWI WWI 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 WWII WWII WWII WWII WWII 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968

v • d • e Australian Open tournaments 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 (Jan) 1977 (Dec) 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Coordinates: 37°49′18″S 144°58′42″E / -37.82167, 144.97833

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