AUSTRALIAN OPEN

one of the world's major tennis championships (the first of the four annual Grand Slam events), held at the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. Started by the Lawn Tennis Association of Australasia (later, of Australia), the first tournament for men was held in 1905 and the first for women in 1922. The site rotated between Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide until 1988, when the tournament was permanently settled at the hard courts of Flinders Park, which was renamed Melbourne Park in 1996. (The switch to hard courts in 1988 left Wimbledon the sole major grass-court tournament in professional tennis.) Although Australians often dominated the field of tennis internationally, the Australian tournament for many years suffered from the reluctance of overseas players to travel the long distance to compete, a situation largely remedied with the advent of jet travel. The tournament is played in January.