The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. The Australian Open starts in the middle of January and continues for two weeks coinciding with the Australia Day holiday. It features men's and women's singles; men's, women's, and mixed doubles; junior's championships; and wheelchair, legends, and exhibition events. Before 1988, it was played on grass courts, but since then two types of hardcourt surfaces have been used: green-coloured Rebound Ace up to 2007 and blue Plexicushion since 2008.
First held in 1905 as the Australasian championships, the Australian Open has grown to become one of the biggest sporting events in the Southern Hemisphere. Nicknamed "the happy slam", the Australian Open is the highest attended Grand Slam event, with more than 902,000 people attending the 2023 tournament. It was also the first Grand Slam tournament to feature indoor play during wet weather or extreme heat with its three primary courts, Rod Laver Arena, John Cain Arena and the refurbished Margaret Court Arena equipped with retractable roofs.
The Australian Open features men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, mixed doubles, and wheelchair competitions. It is played on hard courts and is known for its fast-paced and aggressive style of play. The tournament has a long history dating back to 1905 and has been held at the Melbourne Park complex since 1988. The Australian Open is a major contributor to the Victorian economy; the 2020 Australian Open injected 387.7millionintothestate′seconomy,whileovertheprecedingdecadetheAustralianOpenhadcontributedmorethan2.71 billion in economic benefits to Victoria and generated 1775 jobs for the state, with these jobs being predominantly in the accommodation, hotels, cafés and trade services sectors.
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, tropical savannas in the north, and mountain ranges in the south-east.
Infobox Australian place | type = city | name = Brisbane | state = qld | image = | caption = (From left to right)Skyline from South Bank Queensland Parliament; Brisbane City Hall and King George Square Gallery of Modern Art, Queenslander architecture and Story Bridge | image2 = Map_of_Brisbane_free_and_printable.
Melbourne (ˈmɛlbərn ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: Narrm or Naarm) is the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia (although the most populous in its contiguous urban area). Its name generally refers to a metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities, although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area.