2021 Australian Open By the Numbers

By Witherspoon
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Updated: February 21, 2021

Novak Djokovic collected his ninth Australian Open championship and 18th major crown. EPA-EFE/DAVE HUNT

A tournament like no other, played in front of 130,374 fans, has seen Novak Djokovic (SRB) and Naomi Osaka (JPN) crowned the Australian Open singles champions for 2021.

AO 2021 Champions

[1] Novak Djokovic (SRB) claimed a record ninth Australian Open men’s title and his 18^th Grand Slam defeating [4] Daniil Medvedev (RUS) 7-5 6-2 6-2.

[3] Naomi Osaka (JPN)defeated [22] Jennifer Brady (USA) 6-4 6-3 to win her fourth Grand Slam title and second Australian Open women’s singles championship.

[2] Aryna Sabalenka (BLR) / Elise Mertens (BEL) defeated [3] Barbora Krejcikova (CZE) / Katerina Siniakova (CZE) 6-2 6-3 to win their first Australian Open women’s doubles title.

[9] Ivan Dodig (CRO) / Filip Polasek (SVK) claimed their first Grand Slam title defeating [5] Rajeev Ram (USA) / Joe Salisbury (GBR).

[6] Rajeev Ram (USA) / Barbora Krejcikova (CZE) defeated [WC] Matt Ebden / Sam Stosur (AUS) 6-1 6-4 to claim the pair’s second Australian Open mixed doubles title in two years.

Joachim Gerard (BEL) won his first Grand Slam title, defeating Alfie Hewett (GBR) 6-0 4-6 6-4 in the men’swheelchair singles final.

[1] Diede de Groot (NED)defeated [2] Yui Kamiji (JPN)6-3 6-7(4) [10-4] to win the women’s wheelchair singles title and claim her third Australian Open trophy.

[1] Diede de Groot (NED) / Aniek van Koot (NED) and [1] Gordon Reid (GBR) / Alfie Hewett (GBR) won the women’s and men’s wheelchair doubles titles respectively.

[1] Dylan Alcott (AUS) defeated Sam Schroder (NED) 6-1 6-0 to claim his seventh consecutive Australia Open quad singles title.

Australians [1] Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson won their fourth straight Australian Open quad doubles title.

Naomi Osaka of Japan holds the trophy after winning the women’s singles final against Jennifer Brady of the United States on day 13 of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. EPA-EFE/DAVE HUNT

A total of 494 players from 62 nations competed across all events, including qualifying, singles, doubles and wheelchair.

The nation with the most competitors was the USA with 47 players.

46 Australians took part in the Australian Open, Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson both claiming titles in the quad division.

23 Aussies took part in main draw singles with 12 players advancing to the second round, three into the third round including Ash Barty who advanced to the women’s quarterfinals.

117 players from eight Asia-Pacific nations competed across all events, including qualifying, singles, doubles and wheelchair.

Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka won their first Australian Open women’s doubles title.

On-court action

The Tennis Australia Game Insights Group analyzed:
233,335 shots of ball tracking data
43,651 points of scoring data
6948 games
733 sets of tennis

Novak Djokovic (SRB) served the most aces in the men’s draw with 103 to his name.

Australian Open 2021 champion Naomi Osaka (JPN) served the most aces of any female player with 50 aces in total.

Gael Monfils (FRA)and Reilly Opelka (USA) both sent down the fastest serve of the tournament at 232km/h.

Serena Williams (USA) set a new AO Women’s Record for the fastest serve of 203km/h in the third set of her second round match against Nina Stojanovic (SRB).

Canada’s Denis Shapovalov broke the AO Men’s Record for fastest backhand at 163.2km/h.

Three AO Physical Records were broken during the tournament, Yulia Putintseva (KAZ) expended the most energy with 133KJ and covered the largest distance covered of 0.11km during a single point while Elina Svitolina (UKR) set the highest hitting load of 22 for a point

147 players broke their AO shot speed record including Novak Djokovic(SRB) who hit his fastest serve 209.6 km/h and forehand 164.1 km/h, Daniil Medvedev (RUS) hit his fastest return at 151.0 km/h, forehand 162.5 km/h and backhand 146.3 km/h, Naomi Osaka (JPN) hit her fastest serve at 200.8 km/h while Jennifer Brady (USA) hit her fastest serve 191.1 km/h and forehand 150.1 km/h. Aussie Ash Barty hit her fastest serve at 187.9 km/h and forehand at 148.9 km/h.

252 AO Personal Physical Records were set at AO 2021 including 76 at point level, 66 at game level, 56 at set level and 54 at match level.

Aussie Nick Kyrgios set a new game level player record with 440KJ of total work, covering 0.32km in distance and 17 high intensity changes.

Naomi Osaka (JPN) set a new set level player record with 26 high intensity changes.

Jennifer Brady (USA) set new game level player record for 366KJ of total work, 0.35km of total distance travelled and a hitting load of 125.

Serena Williams set a new AO record for fastest women’s serve. EPA-EFE/DAVE HUNT

Non-live content

The AO Media team produced more than 355 content pieces which were downloaded by broadcasters 6370 times up 63% on 2020.

There were 37,204,483 views on AO YouTube and 87,487,753 minutes watched.

Live broadcast programming

There was a total of 21 courts with live cameras across Melbourne Park including 16 match courts and five practice courts .

There was commentary on five courts: Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena, John Cain Arena, 1573 Arena and Court 3.

The international commentary team featured world renowned and leading tennis experts including Mark Petchey, John Fitzgerald, Sam Stosur, Mark Philippoussis, Brad Stine, Colin Fleming, Alison Mitchell, Louise Pleming, Wally Masur, Roger Rasheed, Jill Craybas, Nicole Pratt, Josh Eagle, Robbie Koenig, Nicole Bradtke, Liz Smylie, Geoff Masters and Stephanie Brantz .

Broadcast innovations included Augmented Reality graphics and integrated statistics from the Game Insight Group and two other data feeds.

More than 150 cameras around the site gave fans more access than ever before. FlyCam was back covering almost 400 metres across the venue .

The RLA walk on this year featured 104 special LED digital banners and two dedicated LED screens.

Augmented crowd FX and specially designed seat covers transformed the stadiums and coverage during the five-day lockdown.

The World Feed live program was fully hosted for the first time from a dedicated studio inside Rod Laver Arena featuring touchscreen analytics.

Domestic broadcast

Nine Network has dominated the ratings for the last fortnight attracting more than 10.9 million viewers despite the move to February. Nick Kyrgios’ five-set loss to Austrian Dominic Thiem was the highest watched non-news program of 2021 with a national peak of 1.8 million and average audience of 1.27 million. More than 57.5 million hours have been viewed across all sessions over the first 13 days . Cumulatively more than 224.3 million minutes have been streamed online via 9now up 21% on 2020. 162.5 million of these have been simulcast up 18%.

International broadcast

AO 2021 aired live in more than 210 territories on 50+ TV channels, reaching more than 900 million homes daily. All 16 match courts streamed online in more than 115 territories via Nine, iQIYI in China, Sony in India, Eurosport in Europe and ESPN in the Americas .
Chinese, national, free to air broadcaster CCTV increased coverage hours over 85% in week one reaching over 400 million households daily . Across its top 11 markets in Europe, Eurosport’s linear coverage saw an uplift in average audience numbers with Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 registering a 41% and 28% increase respectively in the first week. Additional coverage in Europe provided by MATCH TV (Russia), SSR/SRG (Switzerland), Servus TV (Austria),and BBC (UK – highlights) . In the US, the most viewed telecast on ESPN was Serena Williams vs Naomi Osaka peaked at 1.6 million .

The World Feed streamed live on ausopen.com in more than 50 territories including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. All the key stories of each day, on-and-off the court, have aired on thousands of TV channels and online portals around the world via international news agencies including SNTV, Thomson Reuters, and JSNA (Japan Sports News Association) . On radio, live coverage is provided every day by BBC Radio to the UK audience, Sirius XM in the USA, domestic radio broadcaster SEN, and selected matches on NRK Radio in Norway.

Reaching global audiences through content

Top 5 countries reached through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were Australia, United States, India, United Kingdom and Japan . There have been 88.8 million impressions on Instagram, 150 million on Twitter and 65.9 million on Facebook.

Top Instagram post: Tsitsipas beats Rafa Nadal – 780k impressions

Top Tweet: Rafa Nadal post match – 3.2m impressions

Top Facebook post: Naomi Osaka | Australian Open Day 13 Final On-Court Interview… – 964k reach

More than 300 frames have been published as part of the AO Instagram Stories contributing to 25% of the overall impressions on the channel.

Deeper global engagement of tennis fans

The ausopen.com website delivered over 18 million sessions . The website was most popular in Australia, United States, Canada, India and United Kingdom. There were more than 6 million video views on the AO app and website 19% increase in news article features on ausopen.com page views. The official AO app had more than 1 million installs  4 out of 5 star rating for AO app on Google Play store.

Connecting with local audiences

AO has 2,369,017 followers on Weibo and 62,485 on WeChat  Individual local language posts achieved upwards of 50K views.

Connecting with new audiences

64% of total video minutes viewed on Facebook were by users who do not follow the AO page . One-minute video views increased by more than 30% on 2020 to 1.1 million . On Instagram, Naomi Osaka post match ceremony after the Women’s finals reached 29% of non-followers . A new TikTok channel for AO 2021 was launched with 53.9 million #ausopen searches      Top performing TikTok post: Serena – 2.4 million views.

Daniil Medvedev of Russia reacts after winning against Filip Krajinovic of Serbia during their third round match at the Australian Open. EPA-EFE/JAMES ROSS AUSTRALIA

Technology and tournament operations

110 Terabytes of data was transferred around the world from Melbourne Park during the tournament with a further 40 Terabytes of data received . 60km of data cabling and 20km of fibre cabling was installed . There were more than 190,000 accreditation scans.

There were 147 total umpires including 96 Australians and 51 internationals from 27 nations . 380 Australian Open ballkids from Victoria took part in the event. An all-girl ball kid squad featured on Rod Laver Arena during the quarterfinals. 68,616 Dunlop tennis balls and 52,000 towels were used. More than 3000 player laundry bags washed.

Partners

Kia and the Australian Open celebrated their 20^thanniversary as major partners, having joined forces in 2002. Australian tennis stars Dylan Alcott and Nick Kyrgios officially handed over the fleet of 130 Kia courtesy cars to Australian Open Tournament Director Craig Tiley before the tournament. For the first time ever, the Kia AO fleet also included a collection of award winning Kia Niro Hybrid electric vehicles  334 unique videos were produced for AO Partners from over 219 shoots equating to 400 hours of filming. 102 videos were produced exclusively for the AO Virtual Hub powered by Infosys.
Ralph Lauren dressed tournament staff and the ball kid squad. Initial provided 800 touchless hand sanitizer and disinfection wipe stations across the AO precinct, using more than 3000 liters of hand sanitizer.

AO Quarantine Program

1016 people quarantined in Melbourne and Adelaide from 14 January including 966 in Melbourne and 50 in Adelaide. They arrived on 17 chartered flights from Doha, Abu Dhabi, Los Angeles, Singapore and Dubai . AO Tournament Director Craig Tiley held 88 zoom calls with players, agents, tours and international workforce members between 27 August and 12 February . Four quarantine hubs were created at Melbourne Park and Albert Reserve with 40 specialized gyms to service the players during their 14 days of quarantine.

5757 practice sessions comprising of 2 hours of court time, 90 minutes in the gym and 30 minutes of nutrition were held as part of the special AO Quarantine program in Melbourne. Elevators at the three hotels in Melbourne were cleaned 12,480 times after every participant movement an example of the strict Infection Prevention and Control measures in place.

COVID-19 Testing

12,543 tests were administered in Adelaide and Melbourne during quarantine . Eight infectious positives were identified (one player, not including airline crew) less than 0.065% of the total tests . 321 people were deemed close contacts by the Victorian Chief Health Officer (includes airline crew). 188 were AO related, 72 players including two wheelchair athletes, 31 WTA players and 39 ATP players. Following quarantine, a further 1471 tests were administered including more than 500 tests conducted over a period of less than 12 hours following a CQV worker’s positive test result.

Contact tracing at AO 2021

More than 220 RFID readers were installed across the Melbourne Park precinct to assist with contact tracing. More than 25,000 RFID tags were allocated, resulting in seven million reads across the precinct.