'Gone by 2017': Tiley reveals how Melbourne nearly lost Aus Open

Outgoing Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley has spoken about how close Melbourne came to losing the Australian Open to another city.

Having just hosted over 1.3 million fans throughout the qualifying and main draw of the first Grand Slam event of 2026, the AO remains one of Victoria’s biggest events on the calendar, having generated nearly $3.5 billion for the state’s economy across the last ten years.

But it hasn’t always been so positive for the Grand Slam of Asia and the Pacific.   

Throughout the late 2000s, there were numerous reports that Victoria was on the verge of losing the hosting rights to the first Slam of the year to either Shanghai, Dubai or Sydney.

And with Tennis Australia’s contract with the Victorian Government concluding in 2016, the pressure was on at the time, Victorian Premier John Brumby and the Labor government to keep one of tennis’s biggest events within the state.

Tiley, who has been the AO’s Tournament Director since 2006, before also becoming Tennis Australia CEO in 2013, acknowledged that it could have easily gone elsewhere had it not been for the initial $363 million investment made into Melbourne Park back in 2010, which would make for the first of three redevelopment stages.

“If there was not an investment by the Victorian Government in the further redevelopment, it would have been gone by 2017," Tiley told SEN’s Whateley.

“Contract was up in 2016, and there was a great deal of interest from the city of Sydney, from the city of Shanghai.

“And you can see today why there was a great deal of interest with the impact that it has on the city.

“So, the Victorian government made a very good decision back then to make an investment, and there’s a billion-dollar investment that was made in the precinct.

“Half of it was specifically for tennis players; the other half was a general upgrade to the precinct. So that was close.

But it wouldn’t be the only time that Melbourne’s hosting rights for the Happy Slam were tested during Tiley’s reign.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tennis Australia moved heaven and earth to ensure that the 2021 Australian Open would still take place, albeit outside of its usual timeslot in January.

So much so, Tennis Australia would use all of their $80 million in cash reserves alongside a $40 million dollar loan following the impact of the pandemic on the event.

But Tiley believes that had they not run the event, it could have easily seen players change their minds about making the trek to Australia.

“And then during Covid, we were reminded (that) when not running an event changes the event,” he continued.

“And people have got a far way to come, and that’s why we invested a lot of money in hiring planes from airlines around the world that (would) get players on them and fly to Australia and play in a lockdown situation.

“It was really important to get that going because that could have been a moment when, again, if the Australian Open didn’t happen, the players can point to the difficulty of the distance.

“And not having it for one or two of the COVID years would have negatively impacted (the tournament).

“So, we were very focused and very fortunate we had a government that very clearly understood that if it didn’t happen, it’s going to be a problem.”

Tiley is now heading off to the US to become the CEO of the United States Tennis Association.

The Australian Open is set to continue gracing the hard courts of Melbourne Park until 2046.