The confrontation between the world's strongest tennis players, taking place in four stages called « grand slam» tournaments, opens annually with the Australian Open. Australian Open Tennis Championships).
This first of four tournaments takes place in January-February over two weeks on Australia's best tennis courts. It has recently been held in Melbourne, although in its long history, the championship has been held in other cities such as Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. Twice (in 1906 and 1912) the championship was held in New Zealand, although until 1927 it was called the Australasian Championship.
The Australian Open was first held more than a hundred years ago, in 1905.
Just as in the case of the final four tournaments of the «Grand Slam» US Open (US Open Tennis Championship), all tournament matches are held on hard courts (hard). This distinguishes the Australian and US Open from the French Open (Roland Garros), which takes place second in order in May-June, and the third – Wimbledon tournament (UK Open), held in the UK in June-July. In France, meetings take place on clay tennis courts, and in the UK – with grass. For participants in Grand Slam tournaments, such differences sometimes become critical, since different types of surfaces require different styles of play, determine its character, pace, movement of tennis players on the court and the strength of the ball bouncing off the surface.
In the history of tournaments, the winners of all four singles championships have been Donald Budge and Rodney Laver (two-time Grand Slam winner) among men and Maureen Connolly, Margaret Smith and Steffi Graf among women. Among juniors, Stefan Edberg received this honor.
In addition to the «Grand Slam» title, there are two more interesting titles. The first – is the «career Grand Slam», indicating that the tennis player has won all four tournaments, not in one year, but during his sports career. The second – « Golden Grand Slam», emphasizing the fact of winning gold not only in four tournament championships, but also at the Olympic Games. Golden Grand Slam – is the highest achievement for tennis players. Among the champions with this outstanding achievement in singles are – Steffi Graf (who won the Golden Grand Slam in one year (1988)!), Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and others.
Swiss Roger Federer managed to win the most Grand Slam singles tournaments. His number of victories was 20. Of these, he won the Australian Open six times. Among women, Margaret Court succeeded more than others in this, becoming champion 24 times, of which she won the Australian Open 11 times.
The Australian Open is held on the tennis courts of the «Melbourne Park» sports complex in nine categories among senior and senior juniors. The championship acquired its modern name in 1969, becoming open to professionals.
Melbourne became the permanent venue for the championship in 1972. Two of the championship's three main courts bear the names of famous Australian tennis players: Rod Laver and Margaret Court.