Australian Open 2023 ‘shatters’ tournament attendance record
Sydney, Australia, Jan 31 (EFE).- The Australian Open, which ended Sunday with the victory of Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, “shattered” attendance records by exceeding 900,000 fans during the three weeks of the tournament, organizers said Tuesday.
“Not only did we break the (previous) record, we pretty much smashed it,” Craig Tiley, head of the Australian tennis federation and organizer of the Australian Open, told The Age newspaper.
According to Tiley, from Jan. 9 – when the qualifying matches began – until Jan. 29, 902,312 fans attended the Melbourne Park venue, where the first of the four Grand Slams of the season was played.
During the two main weeks of the tournament, between Feb. 16 and Sunday, attendance reached 839,192 people, data that exceeds the mark of 812,174 reached in January 2020, prior to the tournament held with restrictions during the pandemic.
The organizer also said that on Feb. 21, during the third round matches, there were 94,854 spectators, above the 93,709 of the previous record.
The attendance data for the Australian Open exceeds the figures for other major tournaments such as Wimbledon (515,164 people in 2022), Roland Garros (613,000 attendees in 2022) and the US Open (776,000 fans in 2022) during the two weeks’ main competition.
“People want to have a little fun, and tennis is an excellent option for them,” said Tiley, who expects to reach 1 million fans next year. EFE
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