The 2019 Australian Open was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park from 14 to 27 January 2019. It was the 107th edition of the Australian Open, the 51st in the Open Era, and the first Grand Slam of the year. The tournament consisted of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Junior and wheelchair players competed in singles and doubles tournaments. The 2019 Australian Open was the first Australian Open to feature final set tie-breaks.
Roger Federer and Caroline Wozniacki were the defending men's and women's singles champions, but were unsuccessful in their respective title defenses; Federer lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth round and Wozniacki lost to Maria Sharapova in the third round.[2][3]
Novak Djokovic of Serbia won the men's singles title at the 2019 Australian Open, defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain in straight sets in the men's final.[4][5] Naomi Osaka of Japan defeated Petra Kvitová of the Czech Republic in three sets to win the women's singles title.[6] The tournament had a record attendance of 796,435 spectators.
This is the most recent Grand Slam where no lucky losers were selected.
The 2019 Australian Open was the 107th edition of the Australian Open. The tournament was run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and was part of the 2019 ATP Tour and the 2019 WTA Tour calendars under the Grand Slam category. The tournament consisted of both men's and women's singles and doubles draws as well as the mixed doubles events. There were singles and doubles events for both boys and girls (players under 18), which are part of the Grade A category of tournaments. There were also singles, doubles and quad events for men's and women's wheelchair tennis players as part of the NEC tour under the Grand Slam category. The tournament was played on hard courts at Melbourne Park, including three main show courts: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Arena and Margaret Court Arena. As in previous years, the tournament's main sponsor was Kia.
Final set tie-breaks were introduced for all match formats for the first time at the 2019 Australian Open. If a match reached 6–6 in the final set, the first player to score 10 points and be leading by at least 2 points won the match.[7] Katie Boulter and Ekaterina Makarova were the first players in a main draw to compete in the new tie-break format.[8]
For the first time in the men's singles competition, a 10-minute break due to heat was allowed after the third set when the Australian Open Heat Stress Scale reached 4.0 or higher.[9] Hawkeye line-calling technology was extended to be included on all courts. A shot clock was introduced for the first time into the main draw, having been limited to qualifying only in 2018. Women gained parity in the qualifying competition as the draw was increased to 128 players in line with the men's draw.[10][11]
In a five-year deal starting at the 2019 tournament, Dunlop took over from Wilson as the suppliers of the tennis balls.[12][13][14]
Domestically, this was the first Australian Open to be broadcast by the Nine Network, after they secured the rights to televise the tournament from 2019 until 2024. Initially, the broadcast deal was to have started from 2020, however, the Seven Network, which had previously televised the event between 1973 and 2018, agreed to relinquish the rights to the 2019 tournament.[15][16]
Below is a series of tables for each of the competitions showing the ranking points offered for each event:
The Australian Open total prize money for 2019 was increased by 14% to a tournament record A$62,500,000.[17]
1Qualifiers prize money was also the Round of 128 prize money.
*per team
The following are the seeded players. Seedings are based on ATP and WTA rankings on 7 January 2019, while ranking and points before are as of 14 January 2019. Points after are as of 28 January 2019.
† The player did not qualify for the tournament in 2018. Accordingly, points for his 18th best result are deducted instead.
The following players would have been seeded, but they withdrew from the event.
The following players have been accepted directly into the main draw using a protected ranking:
The following players were accepted directly into the main tournament, but withdrew due to injuries or other reasons