Australian Open Betting Offers 2025

From humble beginnings the Australian Tennis Open has risen to become the second biggest tennis event in terms of spectators and represents the start of the Grand Slam season. In the early days of the tournament players couldn’t be bothered to travel to the Southern hemisphere but now with around £45.5 million in prize money ($86.5M Australian dollars) on offer with around £1.66 million ($3.15M) for the winner this is one of the most sought after crowns in the sport tennis.

The event is played at Melbourne Park where it has remained since 1988 when the tournament switched from grass to hard court.  Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have dominated the Aussie Open since 2004, Novak winning a record 10 titles and Roger 6, including two back to back in 2017 and 2018.  The latter of which he won at aged 36.

Novak won three back-to-back (2019-2021).  He was unable to defend that title in 2022 as the Australian government denied Djokovic entry due to his vaccination status for Covid, this allowed Rafa Nadal to win his second Aussie Open and at the same time claiming 21 grand slams to his name at the time.  Appropriately Djokovic was allowed into the country in 2023 and duly won it, maybe that would have been five in a row if 2022 had not happened.

Novak slipped up in semis in 2024 allowing Jannik Sinner to win his first major but no one will be betting against him for 2025 despite him being 37. Although Andy Murray made it to five finals over that time he has never won the tournament.  Who will be victorious in 2025, will Djokovic return to dominance or will someone else get a turn for a change?

As usual find all the best betting offers, event information, schedule, history, format and more on this page.

Australian Open Schedule 2025

Grounds open at 10:00am, Australian time, and play begins for the initial rounds at 11am (midnight GMT) for the morning session and 7pm (8am GMT) for the evening session. Semi-finals and finals begin at 7:30pm (8:30am GMT).

Australian Open Format

The 2025 Australian Open will be the 113th tournament since it was first played 120 years ago in 1905.

As with the other grand slam events 128 players compete in the men’s and women’s singles draw in a knockout format with the doubles competitions consisting of 64 teams. Most of these places are made up from the top 100 ranked players with 16 singles places going to qualifiers and up to ten others to wildcards, invited by Tennis Australia.

Qualifying takes place the week prior to the Open proper form Wednesday to Sunday with 96 players who have qualified based on ranking, nationality or by winning feeder events whittled down to 16 of each sex to join the main draw.

The top 32 ranked players are seeded into the draw. The draw is designed to ensure that seeded players are kept apart for as long as possible, for example, players with rankings 1 and 2 are kept on separate sides of the draw so that they could only possibly meet in the final. The tournament is designed this way to maintain the top names throughout the competition.

Prize funds for the Australian Open are expected to be in excess of $86.5M Australian dollars, this equates to around £42.5M. The winners of the Australian Open men’s and women’s singles can expect to receive in the region of $3,150,000 AUD (£1,660,000) with $1.725M (£0.91M) for the runners up.

A first round player can pick up about $120,000 (£63,00). Doubles winners receive $730,000 (£385,000) for each pair and mixed doubles winners $165,000 (£87,000).

Statistics & Previous Winners

Australian Open records shown above are from the Open era 1969 onwards

History of the Australian Open

Pre-Open Era 1905 to 1968

Organised tennis was established around the year 1877 in Australia but it wasn’t until 1904 that a governing body was formed to oversee the sport. The Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA) was established in 1904 to allow the country to prepare for an upcoming Davis Cup tie. The body based at Melbourne Park is now known as Tennis Australia and is the governing body of the sport in the country and overseas and manages the Open.

The following year in 1905 the LTAA organised the first Australasian Championships staged at the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground in Melbourne, it was men only at this time and was won by Australia’s own, Rodney Heath. In 1923, a year after women we’re allowed to enter, the tournament was designated as a major championship by the International Lawn Tennis Federation and four years later in 1927 the name changed to the Australian Championships.

Prior to the Open era the home of the Open moved around between five Australian cities and two in New Zealand (see top table).

Open Era 1969 to Today

The Australian Championships became the Open in 1969 and was first played at Milton Courts in Brisbane, however from 1972 onwards the location was fixed to Melbourne as this commanded the greatest crowds.

Despite the event becoming a grand slam in 1969 many players were still reluctant to travel so far for the competition. The event was almost exclusively won by Australian and New Zealand players, with the odd Brit and American thrown in, between 1905 and 1982. In 1983 Sweden’s Mats Wilander won the Open that saw Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe competing.

The Open exploded in popularity over the next few years. From 1972 to 1988 the Open was played at Melbourne’s Kooyong Club before moving to the larger Melbourne Park (previously Finders Park) in 1988 in response to demands for higher capacities and better facilities. The attendance nearly doubled in 1988 to around 270,000 people in 1988.

The event was also moved from mid-December in 1985 to mid-January in 1987. Moving the date to after Christmas was designed to attract more players and shorten the grand slam season. Recently top players have even requested the tournament be moved even later to February to allow more preparation time. The Australian Open now commands the second biggest attendance to the US Open at just shy of a million people.

The attendance for the 2020 open was officially a record for the event at 812,174.  This increase was partly due to the building of a new 5,000 seater stadium that opened for 2020.  Attendance in 2021 and 2022 was reduced due to crowd restrictions caused by corona virus but in 2023 a new record was set with 902,312 watching the action.  The record was broken again in 2024 with 1,110,667 attending in Melbourne.

Grass to Hard Courts

These days the Australian Tennis Open is synonymous with those blue plexicushion acrylic based hard courts that seem to absorb Andy Murray’s tears of pain so well.

This wasn’t always the case and in fact for most of its history the Australian Open has been played on grass. Only in 1988 following the move to Melbourne Park was the surface switched to a hard base.

Initially the courts were surfaced with Rebound Ace, another type of hard court made with fiberglass and a polyurethane rubber. In 2008 the surface was replaced with Plexicushion.

It was said at the time that this was due to problems with sticking in very high heat but it is probably more to do with the fact that Rebound Ace was very similar to the US Open’s Deco Turf and it has been suggested the Australian’s changed the surface to create its own brand of play.

The Plexicushion surface is slightly slower than the older Rebound Ace and can be controlled more through a range of temperatures due to a thinner top layer.

In 2020 the surface was replaced again with GreenSet made out of silica and acrylic resin.  This is the same surface used for the ATP Finals, the Olympics and the Davis Cup.  The surface is interesting as it can be adjusted with sand to change the speed of the court from anything between medium-slow to medium-fast.

Show Courts

The Australian Open was the first grand slam event to introduce all weather show courts due to extreme heat and unpredictable weather patterns that vary a lot between La Nina and El Nino years.

The three show courts are fitted with floodlights, air conditioning and retractable roofs that allow play in all weathers and during evening sessions.

• Rod Laver Arena – This is the top court at the Australian Open. When it was opened in 1988 it was known as the National Tennis Centre at Flinders Park, this was changed to Centre Court in 1996 and finally to the Rod Laver in 2000. Rod Laver was a Australian born three times open winner. The stadium holds nearly 15,000 spectators with a retractable roof.

• John Cain Arena – Named the Hisense Arena through sponsorship until 2018 the venue is also known as the Melbourne Park Multi-Purpose Venue as it hosts a range of sports including netball, basketball, ice hockey, cycling and even X Factor auditions. It was renamed after John Cain Jr, a late premier of the state who championed the event in the 1980s. The venue holds 10,300 people and opened in 2000, it also has a retractable roof.

• Margaret Court Arena – This is another multi-purpose venue hosting tennis, hockey and basketball. The arena opened in 1987 and used to be second to the National Tennis Centre until the Hisense Arena opened and was known as Show Court One until 2003. The court was renamed in honour of Australian Grand Slam record holder Margaret Court. The arena now holds 7,500 and has a retractable roof following refurbishment in 2014.

• Show Court Arena – Also called the Kia Arena through sponsorship this open-air court was opened in 2021 with a capacity of 5,000.  Situated between the Rod Lever and John Cain arenas it was part of a $270 million redevelopment of Melbourne Park.  Effectively now a fourth show court the addition of the arena was largely responsible for a record crowd being set in 2023.

There is also a fifth show court, originally named show court two it has been renamed the 1573 Arena.  The court has no roof but does have shading and 3000 seats.  The court is named 1573 due to a 5-year sponsorship with Chinese distillery Luzhou Laojiao that makes Guojiao 1573.

There is also Show Court 3.  Opened in 1988 it seats 3,ooo and is mostly used in the first week for late night matches.

Novak Djokovic

Born on the 22nd of May 1987 in Belgrade, Novak Djokovic would go on to dominate men’s tennis. He was the first player from the former Soviet Republic of Yugoslavia, now known as Serbia, to reach the top rank of the ATP. He was also the first Serbian to win a tennis Grand Slam event. In 2011 he won the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year award to add to other non-tennis prizes he’d been given, including the Order of the Republika Srpska, the Order of St. Sava and the Order of Karađorđe’s Star.

Djokovic’s tennis playing began when he was just four, leading to him being spotted playing as a six-year-old by the former Yugoslavian player Jelena Genčić, who compared him to Monica Seles in terms of talent. The result was that she worked with him for the next six years in order to develop his talent until it reached the point that she could no longer do what was necessary to help develop his career any further. At that point she contact Nikola Pilić and the young Serbian soon moved to his training academy in Germany to train under him.

The first time he won an international tournament occurred when he was victorious in the singles, doubles and team competitions as a fourteen-year-old. He turned professional in 2003 when he entered the ATP World Tour, predominantly playing Challenger and Futures tournaments. He would go on to have a brilliant relationship with the Australian Open, so it is entirely appropriate that the competition was the first Grand Slam event that he entered, doing so in 2005 and being knocked out by its eventual winner Marat Safin in the first round.

2006 was a big year for Djokovic as it saw him reach the top 40 in terms of the world rankings, as well as reaching the quarter final stage of the French Open. More importantly, he won his first ATP title when he was victorious at the Dutch Open, making waves by doing that without losing a set. That was followed hot on the heels by victory in the Moselle Open, seeing his world ranking break into the top 20 for the first time in his career. He also made headlines in the Davis Cup when he defeated Greg Rusedski in the fourth match of the tie between Serbia and Montenegro and the UK, giving them an unassailable lead.

2007 saw him reach his first Major final when he lost out to Roger Federer in the US Open. It came on the back of a semi-final appearance at Wimbledon where he’d had to retire because of a problem with his elbow. Earlier in the year he had also won his first Masters title at Key Biscayne. He also achieved an unprecedented feat in the Rogers Cup in Montreal when he defeated number 3 ranked Andy Roddick in the quarters, number 2 ranked Rafael Nadal in the semis and number 1 ranked Roger Federer in the final, becoming the first player since Boris Becker in 1994 to defeated the top three ranked players in the same tournament.

As mentioned, Djokovic has long enjoyed a positive relationship with the Australian Open and that was confirmed in 2008 when he beat Roger Federer in the semi-finals of the tournament to reach the final without dropping a set, becoming the youngest player ever to make the semi-finals of all four Majors. He then defeated Jo-Wilfried Songa in four sets to win his first Grand Slam title, becoming the first player not named Nadal or Federer to win it since 2005. For a time, this saw Djokovic struggle to reach the same heights and he failed to make it past the second round of Wimbledon before also losing to Andy Murray in the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup.

It did eventually prove to be the touchstone for the rest of his career, however, and in 2009 he made it to ten finals, winning five of them. His relationship with the Australian Open in particular continued to develop and flourish.

At the time of writing he holds the record for the most Australian Open wins for a man with ten titles to his name. That alongside seven Wimbledon titles, four US Open titles and three French Open wins makes him one of the most successful male tennis players ever. When he won the French Open in 2016 he became just the third person to hold all four major titles at the same time, also being the eighth player to have a Career Grand Slam.

Currently as of the end of the 2024 Australian Open Novak Djokovic holds thr record for the most grand slam titles with 24. Rafa Nadal is just behind with 22. Indeed, Nadal took the title in 2022 by winning the Australian Open that Djokovic had won for the previous three years before that.  The fact that Djokovic was banned from the tournament for not getting a covid vaccine meant he didn’t have the opportunity to make it four in a row.  He duly won on his return in 2023 but couldn’t quite manage it in 2024.

Serena Williams

We’ve written about Serena William’s career in more detail on our US Open page, so we won’t repeat the same details here. Instead we’ll take a more focussed look at her relationship with the Australian Open, which it’s fair to say is healthy. Indeed, Margaret Court might hold the record for the most titles won by a female player but it’s Serena Williams that has won the most during the Open era. She’s won it seven times, one more than her shared record at the US Open of six titles achieved by both her and Chris Evert.

The Australian Open was the first Grand Slam tournament that she appeared in the main draw for, beating the sixth-seed Irina Spîrlea before being knocked out by her sister Venus in the second round. She lost out in the third round of the 1999 Australian Open and then the fourth round the following year, also making the final of the Mixed Doubles event with Max Mirnyi, losing to David Adams and Mariaan de Swardt. In 2001 she made it the quarter-finals of the Singles event before losing to Martina Hingis. She won the doubles title alongside Venus that year, however, claiming her first title of any description in the event.

It was a monkey that she’d needed to get off her back and once she had done there was no stopping her. She had to miss out on the competition in 2002 because of injury, but she came back with vengeance the following year. She made it to the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time and it looked as though that would be as far as she’d get when she went 5-1 down in the third set against Kim Clijsters. Instead she completed a remarkable recovery to earn a place in the final against her sister Venus. It was the fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament final that the sisters had competed in, with Serena taking the honours alongside her second Doubles win.

Serena won the Australian Open again in 2005 and 2007, combining Singles success with Doubles victory again in 2009 and 2010 for successive titles in both disciplines. She then failed to make the final of the Australian Open again until 2015, but when she did return she won yet another title when she defeated Maria Sharapova 6-3, 7-6. She made the final of the tournament yet again the following year, this time losing out to Angelique Kerber 4-6, 6-3, 4-6. In 2017 she made the final for the eighth time in her career, winning an Open era record seventh title when she defeated her sister Venus 6-4, 6-4.