In which Australian city is the Australian Open held each year?

The Australian Open is held in Melbourne, Australia.

The tournament takes place at Melbourne Park, a major sporting complex near the city centre. It is the first of tennis's four annual Grand Slam tournaments, traditionally played over two weeks in January before the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

The event was first staged in 1905 as the Australasian Championships and has not always had a fixed home. Earlier editions were held in several Australian cities, as well as Christchurch and Hastings in New Zealand. Melbourne became the permanent host in 1972, and the tournament moved from the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club to the newly developed Melbourne Park complex in 1988.

Another common mix-up concerns the court surface rather than the city. The Australian Open was played on grass until 1987, but it has used hard courts since 1988. Its current courts use a blue GreenSet surface, helping distinguish the event from the clay courts of Roland Garros and Wimbledon’s grass courts.