The 2027 Australian Open is the 115th edition of tennis’s “happy slam” and the first Grand Slam of the year. It runs across January 2027 at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. This is an editorial guide to the tournament – the venue, the format, the defending champions and how to follow it in India – with no tips, odds or predictions.
Key facts at a glance
| Detail | 2027 Australian Open |
|---|---|
| Edition | 115th |
| Dates | January 2027 (Sunday start; confirm exact dates on the official schedule) |
| Format | Sunday start (since 2024), two weeks of play, men’s final traditionally on the last Sunday of January |
| Venue | Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Main court | Rod Laver Arena (14,820 seats, retractable roof) |
| Surface | GreenSet blue hardcourt (since 2020) |
| Defending men’s singles champion | Carlos Alcaraz (2026) |
| Defending women’s singles champion | Elena Rybakina (2026) |
| Broadcast in India | Sony Sports (has broadcast the Australian Open in India since 2015) |
The venue: Melbourne Park
The Australian Open has been played at Melbourne Park (originally called Flinders Park) since 1988, when it moved from the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club and switched from grass to hardcourt. Uniquely among the four Grand Slams, three of its show courts have retractable roofs: Rod Laver Arena, John Cain Arena and Margaret Court Arena – which is why the tournament has become known for finishing on schedule even in extreme Australian summer heat.
- Rod Laver Arena – main court, 14,820 seats, retractable roof (1988)
- John Cain Arena – 10,300 seats, retractable roof (2000)
- Margaret Court Arena – 7,500 seats, retractable roof (1988)
- Kia Arena (also called Show Court Arena) – 5,000 seats (2021)
The complex is on the banks of the Yarra River, right next to Melbourne’s central business district – part of what has made the Australian Open the highest-attended Grand Slam in the world.
Format
The Australian Open follows the standard Grand Slam programme, with two important variations worth knowing:
- Men’s singles – 128-player main draw, best-of-five sets.
- Women’s singles – 128-player main draw, best-of-three sets.
- Men’s and women’s doubles – 64-team draws.
- Mixed doubles – 32-team draw, plus junior, wheelchair and exhibition events.
- Sunday start – since 2024, the tournament begins on Sunday rather than Monday.
- Final-set tiebreak – at 6-6 in the deciding set, the Australian Open uses a first-to-10-points tiebreak (adopted 2019).
Defending champions
Carlos Alcaraz won the 2026 men’s singles, defeating Novak Djokovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5. Elena Rybakina took the women’s singles, beating Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. In the other events, Christian Harrison and Neal Skupski won the men’s doubles, Elise Mertens and Zhang Shuai the women’s, and Olivia Gadecki and John Peers the mixed.
Prize money
The 2026 Australian Open had a total prize pool of A$111.5 million, with the singles champions receiving A$4.15 million each. The 2027 prize money is typically announced in the weeks before the tournament.
How to follow the Australian Open in India
The Australian Open is broadcast in India on Sony Sports, which has held Indian rights since 2015, with matches also available on the corresponding OTT service. Live scores, draws and highlights are on the official AusOpen.com and the tournament app.
A practical note for Indian fans: Melbourne is roughly 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of IST (depending on daylight saving), which means most matches begin in the early morning IST and run through into the evening. Day sessions are ideal for morning viewing; night sessions typically start in the afternoon India time. For how tennis fits alongside cricket and other sports through a single account, see our tennis coverage page.
Records worth knowing
The Australian Open has some of the most extraordinary records in tennis:
- Novak Djokovic – most men’s singles titles (10), by far. His dominance in Melbourne is unmatched in the Open Era.
- Margaret Court – most women’s singles titles (11), an all-time record across every era.
- Serena Williams – most women’s singles titles in the Open Era (7).
- Roy Emerson – most amateur-era men’s singles titles (6).
- The 2026 tournament set an attendance record of 1,368,043 – the largest ever crowd at a Grand Slam.
A bit of history
The Australian Open began in 1905 as the Australasian Championships, held at the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground in Melbourne. It became the Australian Championships in 1927 and adopted its current “Australian Open” name in 1969, the year professional players were finally allowed to compete. It has been played in five Australian cities (Melbourne 66 times, plus Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth) and even twice in New Zealand (Christchurch 1906, Hastings 1912) before settling permanently in Melbourne from 1972 onwards.
Nicknamed the happy slam – a phrase coined by Roger Federer – it moved from grass to hardcourt with the 1988 shift to Melbourne Park, has been played on three different hardcourt surfaces since (Rebound Ace 1988-2007, Plexicushion 2008-2019, GreenSet from 2020), and today is the highest-attended Grand Slam in the world.
Melbourne Park court by court
Melbourne Park’s defining feature is its roofs. It was the first Grand Slam venue to put retractable roofs over three show courts, which means the Australian Open finishes on schedule through summer storms and extreme-heat days that would stop play anywhere else.
| Court | Capacity | Opened | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rod Laver Arena | 14,820 | 1988 | Retractable |
| John Cain Arena | 10,300 | 2000 | Retractable |
| Margaret Court Arena | 7,500 | 1988 | Retractable |
| Kia Arena | 5,000 | 2021 | No |
| 1573 Arena (Show Court 2) | 3,000 | 1988 | No |
| ANZ Arena (Show Court 3) | 3,000 | 1988 | No |
The venue sits on the banks of the Yarra River beside Melbourne’s central business district — walkable from the city, which is a large part of why the Australian Open draws the biggest crowds in tennis. The 2026 tournament set a record with 1,368,043 attendees including qualifying, the largest crowd ever recorded at a Grand Slam.
The extreme heat policy
Melbourne in January can be genuinely dangerous for athletes, and the Australian Open runs a formal heat policy to manage it. Officials monitor a heat stress scale combining air temperature, humidity, radiant heat and wind. As conditions escalate, the tournament can introduce extended breaks between sets, and at the top of the scale it can suspend play on outside courts entirely while matches continue under closed roofs on the three main arenas.
This is why the roofs matter competitively as well as commercially: a player scheduled on Rod Laver Arena during a heat event plays in controlled conditions, while an outside-court match may be suspended for hours. It is one of the quiet variables that shapes a fortnight in Melbourne.
Records and the tournament’s giants
- Novak Djokovic — ten men’s singles titles, the most any player has won at a single major in the Open Era. Melbourne is, by a distance, his most successful venue.
- Margaret Court — eleven women’s singles titles, an all-time record across all eras, and twenty-three championships in total counting doubles and mixed.
- Serena Williams — seven titles, the Open Era women’s record.
- Roy Emerson — six titles in the amateur era, including five consecutive from 1963 to 1967.
- Adrian Quist — ten consecutive men’s doubles titles between 1936 and 1950, a record that will almost certainly never be approached.
Why it is called the happy slam
The nickname came from Roger Federer, and it stuck because it fits. The Australian Open sits at the start of the season when players are fresh, in a city that treats the tournament as a genuine summer festival, with a site that is compact, walkable and unusually relaxed by Grand Slam standards. Ground passes give access to a large number of courts, the precinct stays open late, and the atmosphere is closer to a music festival than the more formal traditions of Wimbledon.
It has also been the most willing of the majors to experiment. It was the first Grand Slam to have retractable roofs on multiple courts, the first to use fully electronic line calling across every match (2021), and it introduced the first-to-ten final-set tiebreak in 2019. For a tournament that spent decades as the least-attended major because of Australia’s remoteness, becoming the best-attended is a genuine turnaround.
The Australian Open’s place in the season
Being the first major of the year shapes the Australian Open in ways that are easy to overlook. Players arrive after an off-season rather than mid-campaign, which means form is harder to read and the draw produces more surprises in the early rounds than at the other Slams.
The build-up runs through a short Australian summer swing of warm-up events in the weeks before, giving players match practice in similar conditions. For fans, that swing is a useful early indicator — though a strong warm-up week has never guaranteed anything once the Slam begins.
| Grand Slam | When | Surface | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Open | January | Hard (GreenSet) | First major of the year; three roofed courts |
| French Open | May–June | Clay | Slowest surface; longest rallies |
| Wimbledon | June–July | Grass | Only major still starting on a Monday |
| US Open | Aug–Sept | Hard (Laykold) | Final major; loudest night sessions |
Watching from India: session times
Melbourne runs roughly 4 hours 30 minutes ahead of IST during the tournament (Australian Eastern Daylight Time). That gives Indian viewers one of the friendliest schedules of any major:
| Session | Melbourne start | Approx. IST |
|---|---|---|
| Day session | 11:00 AM AEDT | 6:30 AM IST |
| Afternoon matches | 1:00–3:00 PM AEDT | 8:30–10:30 AM IST |
| Night session | 7:00 PM AEDT | 2:30 PM IST |
The practical result: night-session matches on Rod Laver Arena — usually the marquee fixtures — start in the early afternoon IST, and finals land comfortably within an Indian afternoon or evening. Of the four majors, the Australian Open is the easiest to watch live from India without losing sleep. The tournament is broadcast in India on Sony Sports, which has held the rights since 2015; AusOpen.com carries live scores and draws.
Following the Australian summer swing
The Australian Open does not arrive from nowhere. The weeks before it are filled with warm-up events across Australia, giving players match practice in similar heat and on similar hardcourt surfaces.
For fans, that swing is a useful early read. Players arriving off an off-season are hard to assess on ranking alone, and the warm-up results at least show who has arrived in form and who is still finding rhythm. It is not predictive — a strong warm-up week has never guaranteed anything once the Slam begins — but it is better information than nothing.
It also matters for scheduling. Players who go deep in a warm-up event arrive in Melbourne with less recovery time, which in a best-of-five first week can tell. That is one of the quiet factors that shapes early-round upsets at the season’s first major.
Want all four majors in one place? Our Grand Slam calendar covers dates, surfaces and IST timings for the whole season.
This is an editorial guide – schedule, teams and venues – and does not offer betting tips, odds or predictions. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over; please play responsibly and set your own limits. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state – check the rules where you live. Fixtures can change; always confirm against the official tournament schedule.