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Final wrap-up 2009 Australian Open

Australian OpenEach year Tennis Australia and IBM strive to improve the Australian Open and the experience of all involved including the fans, the players, the officials and the media. This year was no different with record numbers, world class tennis and a bigger and better tennis experience for all.

For the tenth consecutive year the Australian Open has attracted more than half a million patrons with an official tournament attendance of 603,160 in 2009 and the highest ever day/night attendance in Grand Slam history recorded three times during the first week. A new record of 66,018 attended on Saturday 24 January.

A highlight of the tournament however was the star-studded men's and women's singles draw which included eight men's Grand Slam champions and six women's Grand Slam champions. Reigning supreme at the tournament was American Serena Williams who won her fourth Australian Open title, and Rafael Nadal who battled it out with World No.2 Roger Federer for the first Grand Slam title of the year.

Australian Open 2009 also saw superb TV audience figures, with 2.315 million viewers across the five major metropolitan markets tuning into Channel 7´s coverage of the tournament on the second Tuesday night.

Those fans who couldn´t get along in person made sure they still kept in touch through the official website www.australianopen.com powered by IBM. This was highlighted at the close of play on Day 13, with 7.6 million unique users already having visited the official Australian Open website, up by one million on last year´s figures for the same time.

Favourite player profiles among the fans on www.australianopen.com saw world No.1 Rafael Nadal and this year´s women´s champion Serena Williams top the poll ahead of Roger Federer and Dinara Safina. Andy Roddick lead the men´s competition for aces served at 87, with Serena Williams topping the women´s at 42.

The fastest serves of the tournament were recorded by Australia´s Sam Groth (230km/h) while Sabine Lisicki topped the women´s fastest serves (196km/h). Helping the players serve were the racquet stringers who strung more than 3,400 racquets using over 40 km worth of string, with the fastest racquet strung in just 14 minutes.

And making it all happen behind the scenes were over 4,500 members of staff, including 337 Ball-kids, 365 umpires, 65 court services and operations staff, 80 retail staff and 55 statisticians.

If you would like to learn further about the IBM products and solutions provided at the Australian Open, click here.

This is the Australian Open 2009 all wrapped up, however feel free to browse the website to see what it took to make the Australian Open happen through our IBM and Tennis Australia cast members pages, as well as the solutions and innovations that helped deliver the Tennis to the world.

We will be back with updated content later in the year in preparation for the 2010 Australian Open. Be sure to check back with us then!

Featured Solution: IT Virtualisation

Featured Solution - IT Virtualisation

To handle the huge spikes in web & network traffic, IBM designed and implemented a virtualisation solution, complementing Tennis Australia's existing IT, allowing a seamless user experience while maintaining IT costs. See how IBM do this and the benefits to Tennis Australia.

Australian Open Case-study

Australian Open Case-study

Learn more about the IBM innovations and technologies that help Tennis Australia take the tennis to the world's stage.