What is Australian Open?
The Australian Open is a major tennis tournament held annually in Melbourne Park in Melbourne over the last fortnight of January. The Open is the first of the four Grand Slam tournaments held each year. The other tournaments are French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. The tournament is for both men and women.
The Australian Open was played on grass courts prior to 1988. Since then, three types of hardcourt surfaces have been used. Green coloured Rebound Ace up to 2007, blue Plexicushion from 2008 to 2019, and blue GreenSet since 2020.
The tournament began in 1905 as the Australasian Championships. Since then, it has become one of the biggest sporting events in the Southern Hemisphere. The Australian Open is the most attended Grand Slam tournament with 812,000 people attending the 2020 edition. The Open is also referred to as the “happy slam” and the Grand Slam of the Asia Pacific.
The tournament is managed by Tennis Australia, which was formerly known as the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia, and was played for the first time at the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground in Melbourne in November 1905. The name was changed to Australian Open in 1969. Prior to 1972, the Open was held in five Australian cities and two New Zealand cities. In 1972, the organisers decided to hold the event in Melbourne as the city attracted the biggest patronage in any Australian city.
In the beginning of the 20th century very few international players attended the tournament because of Australia’s geographic remoteness. It took 45 days to travel from Europe to Australia through ships in the 1920s.
Prize Money
The Australian Open is one the few sporting events where the prize money is awarded equally to men and women players. The total prize money for the 2020 edition of the tournament was AUD $71,000,000. The women’s singles winner is awarded with the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup and the men’s singles winner is presented with the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup.
Latest Updates on Australian Open
Iga Swiatek is dominating her Australian Open opponents the way no one has at Melbourne Park since Maria Sharapova in 2013.
Defending champion Jannik Sinner takes on Alex de Minaur in the last quarterfinal of the men's singles event on Wednesday
Novak Djokovic picks a monumental win in the quarterfinal match to keep his 25th grand slam title dream up and running in Australia
The semifinals of the Australian Open 2025 women's singles will be live-streamed on the Sony LIV app and website for fans in India
Coco Gauff suffers a shocking upset in women's singles at the hands of Paula Badosa, while Zverev moves on to the semifinals of the men's singles event
Alcaraz leads Djokovic 2-1 in head-to-head records at grand slam events
Having just lost to Alcaraz in a gut-wrenching Wimbledon final, Djokovic arrived in Paris with only one prize missing from his illustrious career-the Olympic gold.
Djokovic will face Alcaraz in a Grand Slam event for the fourth time since the start of their rivalry in 2022
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka will also be in action in the women's singles quarterfinals on Tuesday
Jones called Novak Djokovic overrated and a has-been and suggested he should be kicked out of the tournament
Aryna Sabalenka will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open 2025
This quarterfinal is a rematch of the last two Wimbledon finals and last year's Olympic final, three tennis matches that have captivated fans in recent times.
Jannik Sinner has made his way to the quarter-finals of the tournament after beating Holger Rune in a 4-set tie.
While Sinner will take on Rune, the other matches will see Italy's L. Sonego take on L. Tien who managed to get past Medvedev on his way here.
Daniil Medvedev has been fined a total of USD 76,000 for his camera and racket smashing outbursts during the first two rounds of the Australian Open.
Bopanna and Shuai were up against fourth seeds Taylor Townsend of the United States and Hugo Nys of Monaco but the Indian-Chinese pair moved to the last eight round without taking the court.
The quarter-final matches will begin on January 21st and will be live streamed on the SonyLIV app and website in India.
The quarter-final action is set to begin on January 21st, with the exact times for the matches yet to be confirmed and will be streamed live on the Sony LIV app in India.
In women's singles, defending champion Sabalenka will take court to book her place in the quarter-finals
The defending champion Jannik Sinner secured another straight-sets win, while Fritz went down in a shock loss