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Founded | 1905 |
Editions | 105 (2017) |
Location | Melbourne (since 1972) Australia |
Venue | Melbourne Park (since 1988) |
Surface |
Grass - outdoors (1905–87) Hard - outdoors(since 1988) |
Prize money | A$50,000,000 (2017) |
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Draw | 128S / 128Q / 64D |
Current champions |
Roger Federer (singles) Henri Kontinen John Peers (doubles) |
Most singles titles | 6 Roy Emerson Novak Djokovic |
Most doubles titles | 10 Adrian Quist |
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Draw | 128S / 96Q / 64D |
Current champions |
Serena Williams (singles) Bethanie Mattek-Sands Lucie Šafářová (doubles) |
Most singles titles | 11 Margaret Court |
Most doubles titles | 12 Thelma Coyne Long |
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Draw | 48 |
Current champions |
Abigail Spears Juan Sebastián Cabal |
Most titles (male) | 4 Harry Hopman Colin Long |
Most titles (female) | 4 Daphne Akhurst Cozens Nell Hall Hopman Nancye Wynne Bolton Thelma Coyne Long |
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2017 Australian Open |
The Australian Open is a major tennis tournament held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne, Australia. First held in 1905, the tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year – the other three being the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. It features men's and women's singles; men's, women's and mixed doubles and junior's championships; as well as wheelchair, legends and exhibition events. Prior to 1988 the tournament had been played on grass courts, but since then two types of hardcourt surfaces have been used at Melbourne Park – green coloured Rebound Ace up to 2007 and, afterwards, blue Plexicushion.
The Australian Open typically has high attendances, rivalling and occasionally exceeding the US Open. The tournament holds the record for the highest attendance at a Grand Slam event. It was the first Grand Slam tournament to feature indoor play during wet weather or extreme heat with its three primary courts, the Rod Laver Arena, Hisense Arena and the refurbished Margaret Court Arena equipped with retractable roofs.
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 Melbourne in November 1905. This facility is now known as the Albert Reserve Tennis Centre.
The tournament was first known as the Australasian Championships and then became the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Since 1905, the Australian Open has been staged in five Australian and two New Zealand cities: Melbourne (55 times), Sydney (17 times), Adelaide (14 times), Brisbane (7 times), Perth (3 times), Christchurch (1906) and Hastings (1912). Though started in 1905, the tournament was not designated as being a major championship until 1924, by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) at a 1923 meeting. The tournament committee changed the structure of the tournament to include seeding at that time. In 1972, it was decided to stage the tournament in Melbourne each year because it attracted the biggest patronage of any Australian city. The tournament was played at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club from 1972 until the move to the new Melbourne Park complex in 1988.