Australian Open

The Australian Open is the first Grand Slam tournament of a tennis calendar, which is held in Melbourne, Australia in the month of January. Since this tournament is the first major tennis tournament of a year, almost all the tennis players aim to kick-start their new season with the Australian Open tennis tournament. The Australian Open is a hard-court tennis tournament that is played at two indoor stadiums-Rod Laver Arena and Vodafone Arena. The tournament is open for men, women and for juniors boys and girls.

The Australian Open tournament began in the year 1905 as "The Australasian Championships" and was managed by the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA), which is now known as Tennis Australia. Since its inception, the Australian Open has undergone lot many changes.

The Australian Open was first played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne, which was then staged in five cities-with the current host city Melbourne hosting the tournament for the maximum 50 times followed by Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and surprisingly the tournament was even hosted two times by New Zealand in Christchurch (1906) and in Hastings (1912).

Like its venues, the name of this Grand Slam tournament too has changed with time. The tournament that began as "The Australasian Championships" in 1905 was christened as Australian Championships in 1927, and 42 years later in 1969, the organizers again felt the need to change name of the tournament, which was changed to the Australian Open-the current name of the tournament.

The other interesting fact about the Australian Open is about its court surface. The Australian open, which presently is a hard court tournament, began on grass court. Till 1988, Melbourne's Kooyong Stadium that had grass courts was the venue for the Australian Open. The surface of the courts for this tournament changed with the shifting of stadium to Melbourne Park Stadium with hard-court surface.

The Current Champions

The reigning champion for 2007 men's singles is the undisputed king of tennis Roger Federer of Switzerland and in women' singles section; it is the Serena Williams of the USA who then ranked at 81 had crushed the then top seed Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3 in a classic match to lift the women's title.

In doubles, American brothers Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan are the defending champions in men's section for 2007 while the pair of Cara Black (Zimbabwe) and Leizel Huber (South Africa) are champions in women's section.

And the mixed doubles crown for the year 2007 was won by Daniel Nestor (Canada) and Elena Likhovtseva (Russia).