The Australian Open – the first of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments – kicks off the 2025 sporting calendar and British hopes are still alive.
Nicknamed “The Happy Slam”, the Australian Open is the highest attended Grand Slam event, with more than 1,100,000 people attending the 2024 tournament.
The first Monday of the competition already saw multiple attendance records broken at Melbourne Park. With the single-day total of 95,290 setting a new record.
For the past two Grand Slams, more than 10 million viewers tuned in to the tournament for Australian broadcaster Nine Network. But the UK in particular saw an impressive increase of 111% in viewers in 2024, following the rise of Emma Raducanu.
Raducanu is through to the third round of the tournament for the first time in her career after beating Amanda Anisimova on Thursday.
The 22-year-old successfully overcame her injury problems she has been battling since Wimbledon last year, where she pulled out of the mixed doubles with Andy Murray.
Only three British players have made it to round three of the tournament: Jack Draper, Jacob Fearnley, Emma Raducanu.
Jack Draper is ranked 15th in the world, the highest for any British tennis player. He is up against Australian Aleksandar Vukic tomorrow in a battle for a place in the fourth round.
Cameron Norrie who was eliminated in the first round, was the only British player to make it to the fourth round in last year’s tournament, with that being the best result in the last five years.
Raducanu has a tough third round tie against five-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek on Saturday, with Jacob Fearnley taking on Alexander Zverev tomorrow.
