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Great Surprises at the Australian Open – Melbourne Tennis Grand Slam Event Melbourne tennis is with the January Australian Open the first global tennis Grand Slam event of the year. It is organised by tennis Australia and is one of Melbourne’s great sporting events. It draws big crowds – attendance is growing and has been over 600,000 for the Australian Open 2008. If you are from interstate or overseas, make sure to book a hotel early as they get booked out during this time. The big names of tennis converge on Melbourne during this time - and if you’re lucky you’ll spot one of them at the airport or in town. Australian Open 2008The Australian Open 2008 has been full of surprises. The favourites in both the men and womens were knocked out in the semi-finals, or earlier - losing the big names like Federer, Nadal, Williams and Henin along the way.Instead an unseated Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, managed the finals. He was beaten by the upcoming Serb Champion, Novac Djokovic. The women's final was easily won by Maria Sharapova. Tennis in Australian SummerMelbourne tennis follows the good old English tradition of being played in summer (southern hemisphere summer). With the extreme weather Melbourne has around January, this usually means that some of the games are played in 35-45 degree heat; others get the milder summer days of around 25.With on court temperatures at times around 50 degrees (yes Celsius), the Australian Open can be taxing on the players and quiet a few have suffered the symptoms of heat exhaustion. To handle this problem and to make Melbourne tennis more tolerable, tennis Australia introduced an Extreme Heat Policy in 1998: Once the thermometer hits 35 degrees - while matches in progress must be completed - the roof over the Rod Laver and the Vodafone Arenas get closed and no matches are commenced on outside courts. The Australian Open 2008 has also introduced a new ‘Plexicushion’ surface that does not retain as much heat. History of the Australian Open and Tennis AustraliaSoon after the first major tennis Championships were held in Wimbledon in 1877, Melburnians followed suit and embraced the new sport of lawn tennis. In 1892, they established the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club in the eastern Melbourne suburbs.The first international tournament was played in 1905 as the Australasian Championships with a field of only 17 players. It became the Australian Championships in 1927. The first women’s championships were played in 1922. Each year the Australian Championships were held in different cities across Australia and New Zealand, but Melbourne remained the most popular and drew the biggest crowds. In 1969, professionals as well as amateurs could compete and it became the Australian Open. In 1972, it was decided to stage the tournament in only one city and, because of its popularity, Melbourne and the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club were selected. This is where today the AAMI Classic, an international tennis tournament just before the Australian Open, is still played. Melbourne tennis was growing into a popular spectator sport and Kooyong had soon outgrown its capacity. To accommodate this growth, the National Tennis Centre at Flinders Park, now called Melbourne Park, was constructed in the 1980s, next to the Yarra, Olympic Park and MCG. The centre court is the Rod Laver Arena, named after the Australian who won the Australian Open in 1969. The 1988 Australian Open move to the new venue was an immediate success, with a 90 per cent increase in attendance – about half of the number of spectators that attend the Australian Open today. From then on, this annual Melbourne tennis event has attracted a growing crowd and is surrounded by a party atmosphere, with the major games being broadcast at Federation Square. Australian Open ChampionsFrom its beginnings in 1905 to 1976, the Australian tennis championships where dominated by Australian victories. Only 9 men and 10 women from other countries - US, England, France and Peru – became victorious in those 70 years.The Championships have over the century become much more international. However, unlike in other sports, Australian tennis has not kept up that dominance. Since the seventies, the Australian Open has been dominated by a changing array of international champions. Many of champions have won this Melbourne tennis event more than once, some three times and some even four or more times. Here is a list of the great names of tennis who have won the tournament 3 or more times: James Anderson (Australian) – 1922, 1924 & 1925; Daphne Akhurst Cozens (Australian) – 1925, 1926, 1928, 1929 & 1930; Return from Melbourne Tennis to Melbourne Sport Return from Melbourne Tennis to Melbourne Home Page
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