Opinion: Much more to Australian Open 2023 than ball and net

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic throws a cap towards a fan as he celebrates victory against Australia’s Alex De Minaur after their men’s singles match on day eight of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on 23 January 2023.
Photo: AFP / Martin Keep

Another Australian Open completed, the 23rd for New Zealand tennis correspondent Dave Worsley*. Here are 15-ish of his thoughts on the tournament…

Winner: Novak Djokovic. A polarising player with plenty of strong opinions for and against. But he is a winner, the champion in Melbourne and is so hard to win points off. He dropped just one set the whole tournament and that was to unheralded Frenchman Enzo Couacaud in the second round.

The win puts Djokovic equal alongside Rafael Nadal with 22 Grand Slam titles, the most for any male player and gave him his 10th Australian Open title as well as a return to world number one.

New Zealanders: Just the two doubles players – Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe, plus junior Vivian Yang played the tournament.

Seventeen-year-old Yang came through junior qualifying and won her first round. She then lost to her doubles partner in a rain interrupted match. But the Auckland left-hander showed potential and said she wants to keep going.

Venus lost in the second round of doubles with partner Jamie Murray not having his best match. Routliffe didn’t have a great tournament losing her first round doubles with Alicja Rosolska in straight sets.

Nationalism: Supporting a player from your country by waving a flag, cheering and clapping is great. However, being fanatical about it has brought tennis a European football atmosphere and may really explode in the future.

Nationalism part 2: Novak Djokovic has some very aggressive, obsessive and sometimes toxic fans on social media. It’s not his fault, but these ‘fans’ are at you and at you again if you mention anything which could be deemed slightly critical of Djokovic.

Heat: What heat? There was one warm day in the first week where the temperature reach around 36, but it wasn’t oppressive. On the women’s finals day it was meant to make 35 but didn’t even hit 29. It was probably the first year in many which didn’t have a 40 degree day. It was however very windy for the majority of the tournament

Crowds: The crowd total for the two weeks of the tournament was 839, 192. If you include the qualifying the total inflates to 902, 312. Your move US Open. Beat that. And they will try.

Tennis: After all the politics and controversy there was some great tennis, sometimes by players who weren’t well known.

For example, Ben Shelton against JJ Wolf, an absolute stunner of a match which was fun, in good spirit and featured some crazy shot making and was on an open-to-everyone court.

The final was one of the highlights in the women’s draw, but there was a heap of early matches that were entertaining.

Winners: Aryna Sabablenka (Belarus) won the women’s singles title over Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan). Sabalenka became the first ‘neutral’ winner of a Grand Slam in recent times after her country not being acknowledged by the tournament or International Tennis Federation.

Sabalenka dedicated the win to her father who passed away age 43 in 2019. The junior girls singles was also neutral as 15-year-old Allina Korneeva beat fellow Russian and fellow 15-year-old Mirra Andreeva in three sets.

The venue: Melbourne Park leaves the other three Grand Slam venues for dead when it comes to accessibility. It’s just a few minutes stroll from the centre of the city, hotels and public transport and everyone loves that.

The US Open is stuck out in Queen’s, Roland Garros in Paris is too small (but great looking) and Wimbledon is quaint, but at Southfields via the Tube or train which quite often strike.

The venue part 2: Melbourne Park caters for kids, families and for those who may not have tennis as their biggest passion, but want to be part of something special. There are a huge number of free kids’ activities including a climbing gym, lego park, entertainers and games. There’s swingball, table tennis, padel tennis and 3D games too.

The venue part 3: There are three courts which have retractable roofs to protect from the rain, or heat, plus the new Kia Arena which is great court to get close to the players and seats 5000.

Prices: (all Australian dollars) $30 for a Australian Open cap, a very economic $6 for a serving of hot chips, oregano fries $14.90, Peroni beer $13.50, Gin and Tonic in a can $13.70 and coffee $5.50. On finals weekend Ticketmaster was selling the very few tickets still available for the men’s singles final for just over $1,000.

Security: The incident with Srdjan Djokovic and so-called supporters of Russia showed the hypocrisy of politics.

Players taking part, but no flags. Support this country, but not that country. Security at times was lax and the four spectators who threatened staff after the Djokovic incident were meant to be banned, but apparently let back in the venue at a later date. During celebration by raucous, orderly Serbian fans immediately after the men’s final, security was absent.

Late nights: Andy Murray with his metal hip played well into the morning in one of his two consecutive five set matches.

The 35-year-old beat Thanasi Kokkinakis in a five-hour 45-minute match which finished at 4.05am, the third latest finish for a tennis match in history. It’s no fun for the ball kids (volunteers) to be picked up by parents. Physio, doctors, officials, media etc all still having to work.

Arriving to your hotel when it’s getting light isn’t fun and doesn’t help the player recover either. It doesn’t work for TV audiences in Australia or Asia and only pampers organisors egos. Smarter scheduling is required, but won’t happen.

Reality Check: Andy Murray again. After returning home to London, Murray tweeted something that would bring any sportsperson down to earth. “School drop off this morning. My 6 year old “daddy don’t give me a kiss and a cuddle anymore when you drop me … just stay in the car .” Tough game. Back to reality!” he said.

In summary: The Australian Open is a great event and recommended even for those who aren’t tennis fans. There’s so much more than the ball being hit over the net.

One concern is that it is getting almost too crowded as the tournament tries to make money to pay for the $AU80 million loss in 2021 and other issues. Getting the dollars in at the expense of comfort is something tournament organisors will need to wrestle with.

It’s a great time to be in Melbourne and see new tennis stars emerge as well as a few older too.

*Tennis journalist Dave Worsley has been covering his 23rd Australian Open and is an RNZ contributor.