Australian Open Aims For Bigger And Better In Battle Of Grand Slams

The Australian Open has a unique ace up its sleeve in the tennis calendar. After the little brother in Brisbane served up some juicy returns last week, it is Melbourne Park's role to raise the new annual standards in Grand Slams, crowd attendance, fan experience, player satisfaction and prize money. The excitement of the Next Gen, the returning champions, the local heroes, and the man who holds ten titles here is enough to get the juices flowing. The Australian Open knows how to turn up the heat on the other Slams from the outset.

The battle on the court brings the punters through the turnstiles, but there’s also a hugely competitive four-way tug for glory and prestige between the majors. The Melbourne opener sets the tone, and the organisers have already announced a 13 per cent increase in prize money compared to the 2023 edition with a record $58.67 million prize pool for the main draw fortnight. “We want to ensure Australia remains the launch pad for the global tennis season and the players and their teams have everything they need to help them perform at their best,” said Tournament Director Craig Tiley.

Tiley badly wants the best of the best to see Melbourne as the pinnacle. The best of the rest are always following what happens in January. While Roland Garros and Wimbledon are steeped in tradition with Rudyard Kipling’s famous quote of treating winning and losing just the same at the latter, Melbourne offers more of a modern, cutting-edge fan festival. It is also the only venue among the fantastic four that has three retractable roofs.

There’s even a brand new spanking Courtside Bar, a two-story structure overlooking Court 6 with a capacity of more than 400 fans. It will be known as the 'party court'. This is not the Davis Cup, but the feeling created is increasingly of a tournament that can bring the world to the spectator, however far away they are. The Australian Open was the first Grand Slam to enter the metaverse too.

There’s no doubt that "the Happy Slam", Melbourne’s much-mentioned moniker, benefits from the clean and fresh feel to the new tennis season and its position as the to blow away the New Year blues. It is the first sports movie of the year, although the only downside is that the ending has become slightly too predictable when the leading man has a pile of winning Oscars and the supporting cast is reduced to the role of extras.

Crucially, the tournament is universally popular with the players, and both Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic have not been shy to declare their views. It’s easy to be magnanimous after victory but player surveys have backed the assertion that this is really their number one. “The players are the stars of the Australian Open and have voted the tournament as their favourite Grand Slam,” Tiley reiterated back in 2019. Nadal did so too, even after he had been pummeled by Djokovic.

The futuristic Player Pod has been primed for total comfort with spacious recovery rooms, ice baths, state-of-the-art gym space and much more. “Huge locker rooms, better recovery facilities, the dining facilities are really, really good and it will be much more comfortable for the players,” said five-time runner-up Andy Murray. Meanwhile back in SW19, Murray’s home tournament, the All-England Club has a battle on its hand to relocate all player facilities onto one site with local opposition. The smaller space at Roland Garros had similar environmental battles to upsize.

Before the U.S. Open stormed away with record attendances during September 2023, its Australian counterpart had kicked off the year with huge numbers. While 515,164 visited Wimbledon in 2022 and 613,500 and 776,120 were at the French Open and Flushing Meadows respectively, there were 839,192 spectators down under for the fortnight 12 months ago. After the big revenue losses caused by the pandemic, tennis can now open the floodgates again.

This year, Tiley is aiming for the million mark. He may well get there with an extra day, a 15added on to minimize the chances of very late finishes which were becoming the black marks on the overall experience. The Sunday start will create more family time at the height of summer when the other side of the world is looking on with sleep in their eyes. The Australian Open is no longer considered the fourth major.