The 2016 Australian Open was a tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park between 18 and 31 January 2016.[1] It was the 104th edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. The tournament consisted of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles play. Junior and wheelchair players competed in singles and doubles tournaments.
Novak Djokovic successfully defended the men's singles title and thus won a record-equaling sixth Australian Open title. Serena Williams was the defending champion in the women's singles but failed to defend her title, losing to Angelique Kerber in the final; by winning, Kerber became the first German player of any gender to win a Grand Slam title since Steffi Graf won her last such title at the 1999 French Open.[2]
As in previous years, this year's tournament's title sponsor was Kia. This edition set a new attendance record for the tournament of 720,363.[3]
Tournament
Rod Laver Arena, where the finals of the Australian Open take place
The 2016 Australian Open was the 104th edition of the tournament and was held at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The tournament was run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and was part of the 2016 ATP World Tour and the 2016 WTA Tour calendars under the Grand Slam category. The tournament consisted of both men's and women's singles and doubles draws as well as a mixed doubles event. There were singles and doubles events for both boys and girls (players under 18), which was part of the Grade A category of tournaments, and also singles, doubles and quad events for men's and women's wheelchair tennis players as part of the NEC tour under the Grand Slam category.
In Australia, selected key matches were broadcast live by the Seven Network. The majority of matches were shown on the network's primary channel Channel Seven, however during news programming nationwide and most night matches in Perth, coverage shifted to either 7Two or 7mate. Additionally, every match was also available to be streamed live through a free 7Tennis mobile app.[5]
Internationally, ESPN held the rights for America and Central America, broadcasting matches on ESPN2 and ESPN3 in the United States as well as regionally on ESPN International. ESPN also sub-licenses matches to Tennis Channel.[6][7] Other broadcasters included beIN Sports in the Middle East, SuperSport in Africa, Eurosport through Europe (plus NOS Netherlands and SRG SSR in Switzerland), CCTV, iQiyi and SMG in China, Fiji One in Fiji, Sony ESPN in India, both Wowow and NHK in Japan, Sky in New Zealand and Fox Sports Asia in selected markets in the Asia Pacific region.[6] In Canada, TSN broadcast matches across multiple channels.[8]
Events
Spectator safety
Spectator safety became a major issue during the tournament, with up to four separate cases reported:
On Day 2, play was suspended during the fourth set of Bernard Tomic's first round match against Denis Istomin for 20 minutes after an elderly spectator collapsed due to heat stress; she was subsequently treated with an EpiPen and taken away from Hisense Arena.[9]
On Day 4, Ana Ivanovic's second round match against Anastasija Sevastova was interrupted in the first set when another elderly spectator fell down a set of stairs, delaying play by 25 minutes.[10]
On Day 6, in the most serious case, Ivanovic was again involved in a match that had to be suspended, after her coach Nigel Sears suffered a heart attack during the second set of her match against Madison Keys. Sears, who is the father-in-law of Andy Murray, had to be stretchered out of the stands and play on Rod Laver Arena was suspended for an hour. Having led by a set and a break at the time, Ivanovic proceeded to lose the match in three sets. Sears was later taken to hospital where he eventually made a full recovery.[11]
On Day 7, Sam Groth's mother fell down a set of stairs on Hisense Arena during the second set of her son and Lleyton Hewitt's doubles match against Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil, causing play to be suspended by 20 minutes. She was later able to walk out of the court unassisted.[12]
Maria Sharapova doping controversy
On 7 March 2016, five weeks after the conclusion of the tournament, world number seven Maria Sharapova announced at a press conference in Los Angeles that she had failed a drug test following her quarter-final defeat by Serena Williams on 26 January. Sharapova confessed to taking the substance meldonium, which was placed on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances on 1 January; she was later suspended for two years (later reduced to fifteen months on appeal), backdated to 26 January, and was subsequently docked the $A375,000 she earned for reaching the quarter-finals.[13][14][15]
Point and prize money distribution
Point distribution
Below is a series of tables for each of the competitions showing the ranking points on offer for each event.
Djokovic and Murray had faced one another 30 times prior to the final, with Djokovic victorious on 21 occasions. Murray had lost four Australian Open finals, three times to Djokovic, while the Serb had won the title five times. After an even first game, Djokovic broke Murray twice to lead 5–0, before Murray held. Djokovic took the winning game to secure the first set 6–1 in 30 minutes. The second set went with serve until Djokovic broke Murray to lead 4–3. The Scot broke back immediately and held his serve, but Djokovic broke in the eleventh game, then went on to hold serve, taking the second set 7–5. Djokovic broke the Murray serve in the first game of the third set, but Murray broke back to restore parity in the set at 3–3. The subsequent games went with serve and sent the set to a tie-break. Djokovic led 3–0 and 6–1 before finally securing the championship victory by three sets to love, with a 7–3 tie-break victory.[16]
Going into the final, Kerber and Williams had faced each other six times with Williams holding a 5–1 advantage. Kerber broke Williams in the third game of the first set with Williams breaking back to make it 3–3. Kerber immediately broke back and held serve to win the first set 6–4. Williams took advantage of the third of three break points in the fourth game of the second set, the remainder of the set going with serve, leveling the match at one set all. Kerber broke Williams in the second game of the final set, but Williams immediately broke back and held her own serve to level the deciding set at 2–2. Another break for Kerber saw her leading 5–2 but Williams broke back once again, taking the set to 5–4 to Kerber. A cross-court exchange described as "breathtaking" saw Williams hit the ball long, securing the title for Kerber.[17]
The following are the seeded players and notable players who withdrew from the event. Seeding are arranged according to ATP and WTA rankings on 11 January 2016, while ranking and points before are as of 18 January 2016.
Novak Djokovic
Angelique Kerber
Jamie Murray / 
Bruno Soares
Martina Hingis / 
Sania Mirza
Elena Vesnina / 
Jiske Griffioen
Dylan Alcott
Stéphane Houdet / 
Yui Kamiji / 
Lucas Sithole / 
David Wagner
Vera Lapko
Tereza Mihalíková
Jonas Björkman / .jpg)
