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Australian Open
The Final Word: Australian Open 2010
Melbourne, Australia
by Press Release
|31.01.2010
© Getty ImagesRoger Federer improved to 16-6 lifetime in Grand Slam finals.
A record crowd of 653,860 attended Australian Open 2010.
The attendance smashed the previous record by nearly 50,000 in a fortnight of tennis that dominated the world sporting spotlight and eclipsed many of the historical marks for the Grand Slam of Asia Pacific.
Highlights included:
· The highest ever day/night attendance in Grand Slam history, with 77,043 fans attending on Saturday 23th January
· Record traffic to the official Australian Open 2010 website www.australianopen.com
· More than half a million dollars raised through The Hit for Haiti charity match
· Record international interest with peaks in China and Britain
· Australian Open 2010 was one of the top Twitter trending topics throughout the six days of the finals
The highest ever day/night attendance in Grand Slam history was recorded twice during the first week of Australian Open 2010 - on Wednesday 20 January and again on Saturday 23 January. The new record of 77,043 was set on Saturday 23rd January, eclipsing the previous record by more than 11,000 fans.
A star-studded men's and women's singles draw included nine men's Grand Slam champions and nine women's Grand Slam champions and 31 of the top 32 men and all of the top 32 women. A total of 38 nations were represented in the singles main draws (38 countries each in both the men’s and women's singles.)
American Serena Williams won her fifth Australian Open title, defeating Justin Henin, and a dream final line up in the men’s draw saw world No.1 Roger Federer battling it out with world No.4 Andy Murray for the first Grand Slam title of the year.
Australian Open 2010 was the stage for Grand Slam comebacks for former world No.1 Justine Henin and former world No.9 Alicia Molik. Henin enjoyed a remarkable return to Grand Slam tennis, eliminating three seeded players as she progressed through the draw. Molik was knocked out in the opening round by Frenchwoman Julie Coin.
China’s Li Na and Jie Zheng created history when they became the first two Chinese players to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. The pair captured the attention of the world and made front page news in their home country.
Tennis fans logged on to the official Australian Open 2010 website - www.australianopen.com – in record numbers. Prior to the men’s final, unique visitors were at 9.38 million, while page views jumped 41.4 percent to 302,270 million.
The most popular male players on the website were Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick while in the women’s event Justine Henin, Maria Kirilenko and 2010 champion Serena Williams led the field.
The first official iPhone app, produced with Australian Open technology partner IBM, had 367,003 downloads and continues to climb, while the mobile Australian Open website (m.australianopen.com) notched 6,170,384 page views.
The Australian Open Facebook page drew 56,696 fans and nearly 10,000 followers on Twitter.
The Hit for Haiti Charity Fundraiser raised $44,007.19 from an online auction of tennis racquets.
Overall donations from the fundraiser reached nearly $700,000 and included major contributions from the ATP World Tour, Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, International Tennis Federation, and the Grand Slam Committee.
Entertaining the crowds were some of Australia’s top music acts including Jessica Mauboy, Vanessa Amorosi, Jersey Boys, Kisschasy, Kate Miller-Heidke, Ladyhawke, James Reyne and Mark Seymore and Daryl Braithwaite.
Over the fortnight fans devoured 15,000 Aussie sausages, 110,000 icecreams, 100,000 cups of coffee, 150,000 bottles of Evian water, 85,437 bottles of Jacobs Creek wine, 80,000 bottles of Heineken and 230,000 draught cups and more than 50,000 buckets of hot chips.
In the player cafe, players ordered more than 3500 Chef's specials and 2000 pasta dishes per day during peak times. The players also loved salad, with more than 1400 per day consumed during peak periods.
More than 1500 media attended the event with record numbers attending from China and Great Britain.
Keeping all the media, staff and players up to date with what was happening around the site were 770
Panasonic televisions tuned to display courts, stats and other information.
And making it all happen behind the scenes were more than 4,500 members of staff, including 316 MLC Ballkids, 330 umpires, 205 Kia courtesy car drivers, 44 court services staff, 120 retail staff and 50 statisticians.
A fleet of 100 official cars supplied by the tournament’s major sponsor Kia Motors made in excess of 40,000 journeys transporting players to and from Melbourne Park, clocking up more than 315,000 km.
The fastest serves of the tournament were recorded by Americans Taylor Dent (231 kmh) and Venus Williams (201 kmh). Helping the players serve were 14 professional racquet stringers who strung 3297 racquets using close to 40km of string.
Famous faces watching the action included Erica Bana, Lily Allen, Jesse Metcalfe, Les Hill, Luke Mitchell, Erin McNaught, Antonia Kidman, Stephanie Rice, Ben Cousins, Guy Sebastian, Matt Preston, Darren Middleton, Pete Evans, Daniel McPherson, Sam Kekovich, Liesel Jones and Geoffrey Rush.
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