Melbourne VIC, Australia, 27 January 2014 | ausopen.com

Two new champions were crowned at Melbourne Park in 2014, with [4] Li Na (CHN) and [8] Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI) claiming their first Australian Open titles.

As the dust settles on two weeks of world class tennis and entertainment, this is the final word.

On-court action

·         Eighth seed Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI) won his first Grand Slam singles title, defeating [1] Rafael Nadal (ESP) 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-3. Wawrinka became the first man to defeat both the No.1 and No.2 seeds at a Grand Slam since Spain’s Sergi Bruguera achieved the feat at Roland Garros in 1993. Wawrinka was presented the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup by Pete Sampras on the 20^th anniversary of his 1994 Australian Open win

·         World No.4 and fourth seed Li Na (CHN) won her first Australian Open crown and second career Grand Slam title with victory over [20] Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) 7-6(3) 6-0 in the women’s singles final. Li was presented the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup by Chris Evert on the 30^th anniversary of her 1984 Australian Open win

·         [14] Lukasz Kubot (POL) and Robert Lindstedt (SWE) claimed the men’s doubles title, defeating unseeded duo Eric Butorac (USA) and Raven Klaasen (RSA) 6-3 6-3

·         Top seeds Sara Errani (ITA) and Roberta Vinci (ITA) won back-to-back women’s doubles titles, posting a 6-4 3-6 7-5 win over Russian pair [3] Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina

·         Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) and Daniel Nestor (CAN) took out the mixed doubles crown with a straight sets victory over Sania Mirza (IND) and Horia Tecau (ROU) 6-3 6-2

·         German top seed Alexander Zverev won the boys’ singles championship, defeating second seed Stefan Kozlov(USA) 6-3 6-0

·         Russian No.4 seed Elizaveta Kulichkova stormed past Jana Fett of Croatia  6-2 6-1 to claim the girls’ singles title

·         Sabine Ellerbrock (GER) and Shingo Kunieda (JPN) took out the women’s and men’s wheelchair singles titles respectively. Top seeds Yui Kamiji (JPN) and Jordanne Whiley (GBR) won the women’s wheelchair doubles, while [1] Stephane Houdet (FRA) and Shingo Kunieda (JPN) claimed the men’s wheelchair doubles. No.1 seed David Wagner (USA) took out the quad wheelchair singles, and teamed with Andrew Lapthorne (GBR) to win the quad wheelchair doubles

·         Four former world No.1s – Mats Wilander, Martina Navratilova, Martina Hingis and Tracy Austin – and another 12 former top 10 players contested the annual Legends event. Australian pair Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodfordetook out the men’s event, while Hingis and Navratilova won the women’s title

·         Australia’s Casey Dellacqua (WA) won her way into the fourth round with wins over Vera Zvonareva (RUS), [18]Kirsten Flipkens (BEL) and Jie Zheng (CHN) before falling to rising Canadian star [30] Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets

·         Rising Australian junior Bradley Mousley (SA) won back-to-back boys’ doubles titles, partnering Lucas Miedler(AUT) to defeat French pair Quentin Halys and Johan Sebastien Tatlot 6-4 6-3

·         Sixteen Grand Slam champions contested the main singles draw: [5] Juan Martin del Potro (ARG), [2] Novak Djokovic (SRB), [6] Roger Federer (SUI), Lleyton Hewitt (AUS), [4] Andy Murray (GBR), [1] Rafael Nadal (ESP), [2]Victoria Azarenka (BLR), [14] Ana Ivanovic (SRB), Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS), Petra Kvitova (CZE), [4] Li Na (CHN),Francesca Shiavone (ITA), [3] Maria Sharapova (RUS), [17] Samantha Stosur (AUS), [1] Serena Williams (USA) andVenus Williams (USA)

·         Forty-nine nations were represented among the 256 players competing in main draw singles. There were 39countries represented in the men’s singles (including 15 players from France) and 42 in the women’s singles draw (including 12 players from the USA). The USA was the most represented nation overall, with 24 players in action

·         A total of 690 players competed across all events, including juniors, wheelies and legends

·         A total of 4477 games – or 452 sets – were played in 127 matches in the men’s singles draw. Fifty-nine matches (46 per cent) went to four sets or more, and 88 sets were decided by tiebreakers

·         In 127 matches in the women’s field, competitors racked up 2689 games across 295 sets. Forty-two matches (33 per cent) went to three sets. Twenty-six sets in the women’s draw were decided by a tie-breaker

·         Australian Sam Groth (Vic) had the fastest serve of the tournament at 234km/h

·         [19] Kevin Anderson (RSA) served 79 aces, the most of any man in the main singles draw

·         Nadiya Kichenok (UKR) recorded the fastest serve in the women’s draw at 202km/h

·         [1] Serena Williams (USA) served the highest number of aces in the women’s draw with 39

·         Australian tennis great Mervyn Rose was honoured at the annual Legends Lunch. The men’s singles and double champion at the 1954 Australian Championships was joined at the event by Australia’s triumphant 1957 Davis Cup team: Rod Laver, Ashley Cooper, Mal Anderson and Neale Fraser. Also at the lunch were 1984 Australian Open champions Mats Wilander and Chris Evert, as well as 1994 champion Pete Sampras.
A Night with Roger Federer and Friends

·         For the first time ever a special charity match, A Night with Roger Federer and Friends, was staged at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday 8 January

·         The event raised more than $1 million for the Roger Federer Foundation and Australian Tennis Foundation

·         A highlight of the night was Australian tennis legend Rod Laver joining Federer to play a few points on Rod Laver Arena. The YouTube clip of the hit-up has received more than 149,000 views.

Attendance

·         A total of 643,280 fans attended Australian Open 2014. The all-time Australian Open attendance record of 686,006 was set in 2012

·         Heineken Day on the middle Saturday of the tournament was the busiest of the 2014 event, with 80,219 fans on site

·         A first Monday day/night attendance record was set, with 63,595 people on site. The previous first Monday record was 63,520 in 2012

·         More than 1800 tennis fans sailed to Melbourne Park on P&O Cruises’ first ever Australian Open cruise

·         Famous faces in the crowd included Liam Gallagher, Mark Webber, Geoffrey Rush, Dannii Minogue, comediansMiranda Hart and Jimmy Carr , Hamish Blake and Zoe Foster-Blake,  Andy Lee, Shane Warne, Australian of the Year Adam Goodes, Gary Ablett Jnr, Stephanie Rice, Sally Fitzgibbons, Peter Siddle, Megan Gale and Shaun Hampson, celebrity chefs Manu Feildel, Matt Preston, Matt Moran and Shane Delia,  Gyton Grantley, Redfoo, Guy Sebastian and Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Jeff Ament

·         Fans on Grand Slam Oval were entertained by headline music acts Pete Tong, British India, The Rubens, Daryl Braithwaite and more

·         The Victorian Government announced $338 million in funding for Stage 2 of the Melbourne Park redevelopment, including upgrades to Rod Laver Arena and a footbridge connecting Melbourne Park with Birrarung Marr and Flinders Street Station. Stage 1 of the redevelopment includes the new-look Margaret Court Arena, expected to be completed later in 2014. The new National Tennis Centre, featuring eight Italian clay courts, indoor and outdoor plexicushion practice courts, a state-of-the-art gymnasium plus treatment and recovery rooms was completed prior to Australian Open 2013

Broadcast and media

·         More than 600 journalists, photographers and videographers from 300 media outlets provided detailed coverage of the Australian Open, including 248 international media from 43 different countries. Asian media represented nine per cent of all international accredited media

·         More than 1000 broadcast media were accredited, broadcasting to more than 200 countries worldwide. Seven on-site networks were from the Asia-Pacific region

·         The domestic television broadcast reached 13.6 million Australians over the tournament, with 3.1 million Australians tuning in to the men’s final.

Digital and social media (as at Monday 27 January)

·         There were more than 17 million unique visitors to ausopen.com throughout the tournament period, an increase of 12 per cent on 2013 numbers

·         The largest percentage of online visitors to ausopen.com came from Australia, followed by the USA, Canada, the UK,India and China

·         The most popular female players of the event were Eugenie Bouchard (372,799 player profile views), Dominika Cibulkova (316,409), Ana Ivanovic (205,971), Li Na (194,304) and Agnieszka Radwanska (190,340). The most popular male players were Rafael Nadal (292,289), Roger Federer (275,410), Stanislas Wawrinka (222,120), Grigor Dimitrov(172,770) and Novak Djokovic (132,131)

·         There were more than 4.9 million launches of Slamtracker, an increase of 154 per cent

·         The official Australian Open App was downloaded more than 1.2 million times across iPhone, iPad and Android devices

·         The Mandarin scoreboard received more than 7 million downloads

·         There was a 91 per cent increase in mobile site page views, with more than 35 million page views at m.ausopen.com

·         Millions of tennis fans tuned in to AOTV and the live coverage of Australian Open 2014. AOTV (including live and video on demand) accrued more than 14.5 million plays, an increase of 200 per cent on 2013. More than 800,000 hours of content were watched by fans

·         The Australian Open You Tube channel had more than 8 million views, with more than 135,000 hours of content consumed by fans

·         The Australian Open Facebook page grew to 1,158,308 likes and a total reach of 12.5 million. The most engaged countries were Australia, the USA, India, the Philippines and the UK. Rafael Nadal and Li Na were the most mentioned male and female players on Facebook respectively

·         On Twitter, @australianopen grew to 440,567 followers, an increase of more than 65,000 fans, up 80 per cent on 2013. Ana Ivanovic’s upset win over Serena Williams drew 123,000 tweets during the match at a rate of 7,232 tweets per minute. ‘Game, set, match to @AnaIvanovic. She’s knocked out No. 1 seed #Serena Williams 4-6 6-3 6-3 #ausopen’ notched up the most retweets of the tournament from the official Australian Open account

·         New in 2014, Twitter platform Snappy TV totalled more than 900,000 views. The most popular clip was Eugenie Bouchard revealing her ultimate date on court

·         Instagram followers increased by 25,054 to 62,876. Australian Open Instagram photos received more than 1.4 million likes. More than 100,000 photos were hashtagged #ausopen or #australianopen

·         More than 10,000 fans ‘checked in’ at the new Social Shack in Garden Square, which was visited by famous tennis faces including  Stanislas Wawrinka, Victoria Azarenka, Yannick Noah, Martina Hingis, Ken Rosewall and Judy Murray

Information technology

·         More than 55,000 devices detected and connected to the AO Wi-Fi network, a 35 per cent increase on 2013

·         The AO Wi-Fi network handled over 14Tb (terabytes) of traffic during the event, a 584 per cent increase on 2013

·         48km of temporary cabling was rolled out for Australian Open 2014

·         22km of data cabling was installed for Hawk-Eye across seven match courts

·         More than 300km of permanent fibre and 600km of permanent data cabling was used across the precinct

·         More than 350 AO vision systems (IPTV) were used in the media and broadcast areas

·         Seven information towers were available to fans throughout the precinct, including at the Eastern Plaza

·         100Tb of video assets were stored by Tennis Australia, a 67 per cent increase on 2013

·         More than 29,000 accreditations were generated and supported by the AO accreditations system

·         Australian Open 2014 was the first Grand Slam tournament to introduce a new integrated
Intercom appliance/system for chair umpires

Tournament operations

·         The Wilson stringers hut restrung more than 4200 racquets, using 50km of string

·         More than 110 racquets were rapidly restrung for players during matches

·         Serena Williams had the most racquets restrung of all players in the main draw, sending 45 racquets to the stringers

·         Matches were officiated by 350 chair umpires and linespersons from 36 countries, including China, Egypt, Greece, Norway and Brazil. Approximately forty chair umpires and 250 linespeople per day officiated matches in the early rounds of the tournament

·         There were more than 380 ballkids including 341 from Victoria, 13 from interstate, 20 from Korea and six from China in the 2014 squad

·       Players were transported by a fleet of 110 Kia cars during the tournament, with more than 40,000 journeys made by215 drivers

·         Around the grounds more than 55,000 sandwiches and baguettes, 150,000 ice creams and 200,000 bottles of Mount Franklin water were sold

·         The Get Court Up tote bag, official men’s and women’s Australian Open towels and jumbo Wilson tennis ballswere among the most popular items at the AO Shop

·       Players and celebrities including world No.1 Rafael Nadal, two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, three-time men’s singles champion Mats Wilander and comedian Dave Hughes participated in video interviews forKia Open Drive. Videos can be viewed on the official Australian Open YouTube channel

·       Associate sponsor ANZ extended its partnerships with the Australian Open for a further five years

·         On-court signage on Rod Laver Arena for ANZ and Jacob’s Creek appeared in Mandarin for the first time

·         More than six thousand staff, contractors and volunteers employed by Tennis Australia, Melbourne Olympic Parks Trust (MOPT) and catering suppliers Delaware North worked behind the scenes to deliver Australian Open 2014.

Community tennis

·         More than 13,000 fans attended a sold-out Kids Tennis Day on Saturday 11 January, highlighted by the Rod Laver Arena Spectacular with Kids Tennis Day ambassador Roger Federer, world No.1s Rafael Nadal and Victoria Azarenka, Australian favourites Lleyton Hewitt, Samantha Stosur and Pat Rafter, and Canadian star Eugenie Bouchard. The event was produced in association with Nickelodeon

·         More than 1000 junior tennis fans participated in on-court MLC Tennis Hot Shots activities on Kids Tennis Day

·         78 MLC Tennis Hot Shots and Super 10s participants tossed the coin prior to matches

·         More than 42,000 fans visited MLC Fan Zone on Grand Slam Oval, a fun and interactive grassroots tennis precinct for children aged 10 years and under

·         More than 10,000 fans, including celebrities Liam Gallagher, Gary Ablett Jnr and Sally Fitzgibbons, played on the MLC Tennis Hot Shots courts at Melbourne Park

·         More than 250 people participated in Cardio Tennis at Australian Open 2014, burning a combined 150,600 calories

·         The AO Blitz matched up tennis-loving towns around Australia with all 256 main draw singles players. Women’s champion Li Na was supported throughout her Australian Open 2014 campaign by the South Australian town ofWatervale, while men’s champion Stanislas Wawrinka was cheered on by Macclesfield/Echunga (SA). Towns ‘won’ a player by completing tennis challenges in the lead-up to the event.