Australian Open 2021: Courts
Sports · Tennis · Australian Open 2021
Courts
The whole tournament happened at Melbourne Park, on the eastern edge of the city — sixteen championship courts inside one set of gates, from Rod Laver Arena, where all five finals were played, out to the numbered courts that carried the first rounds. The plan below draws every court where it actually sat, to scale, from surveyed footprints — and each one opens to exactly which matches were played on it, in the order they were played, with the time each began wherever the tournament’s own record of it survives.
Rod Laver ArenaMen's FFinalWomen's FFinalMen's Doubles FFinalWomen's Doubles FFinalMixed Doubles FFinal14,82059 matches
Centre court since the precinct opened in 1988, when it was plain “National Tennis Centre at Flinders Park” — the first tennis venue anywhere with a retractable roof, an idea the Victorian premier floated as a compromise between an open-air court and a closed arena. It took Rod Laver’s name in January 2000 and seats 14,820 for tennis. A 2018 upgrade cut the roof’s closing time from thirty minutes to five. In 2021 it staged all five finals — the mixed doubles included — and carried 59 main-draw matches, more than any other court.
Novak Djokovic
Daniil Medvedev
Dodig / 
Polášek
Salisbury
Naomi Osaka
Krejčíková / Show 55 earlier matchesHide 55 earlier matches
Soares
Rafael Nadal
Grigor Dimitrov
Su-Wei Hsieh
Alexander Zverev
Simona Halep
Elina Svitolina
Stefanos Tsitsipas (5)✓
Matteo Berrettini (9)
Dominic Thiem
Milos Raonic
Iga Świątek
Belinda Bencic
Anett Kontaveit
Adrian Mannarino
Danka Kovinić
Mikhail KukushkinMargaret Court ArenaMen's Doubles SFSemi-finalWomen's Doubles SFSemi-finalMixed Doubles SFSemi-final7,50048 matches
Show Court 1 when the grounds opened in 1988, and Margaret Court Arena since — rebuilt for the 2015 tournament from 6,000 seats to 7,500 and given the fastest retractable roof of its kind, five minutes open to shut. It is the third of Melbourne Park’s roofed courts, which is what makes this the only Grand Slam venue that can put three matches under cover at once, and at 48 matches it carried the heaviest slate of the fortnight outside Rod Laver Arena.
Klepač / 
Schuurs
Daniell / 
Arévalo / Show 41 earlier matchesHide 41 earlier matches
Casper Ruud
Pablo Cuevas
Kevin AndersonJohn Cain Arena10,50024 matches
The People’s Court — the second-largest arena here, opened in 2000 and renamed four times before it settled (Vodafone, Hisense, Melbourne, and since December 2020 John Cain, for the premier who kept the Australian Open in Melbourne). It seats 10,500 for tennis, has its own retractable roof and a velodrome track under the seating, and it is the one show court a ground pass gets you into, which is most of why it sounds the way it does when an Australian is playing.
Mikael Ymer
Diego Schwartzman
Ons JabeurShow 16 earlier matchesHide 16 earlier matches
Márton Fucsovics
Pedro Sousa1573 Arena3,00024 matches
Show Court 2 by construction, 1573 Arena by contract — named from the 2019 tournament for Guojiao 1573, a baijiu distilled by Luzhou Laojiao, in the first of the show-court sponsorships. It has stood since the grounds opened in 1988 and seats 3,000, open to the sky. In 2021 it was the newest show court on the grounds: Kia Arena did not exist yet, and would not until the following tournament.
Radu Albot
RuusuvuoriShow 16 earlier matchesHide 16 earlier matches
Lin Zhu
Ričardas Berankis
Mayar SherifCourt 3Women's Doubles SFSemi-finalMixed Doubles SFSemi-final3,00040 matches
The last of Melbourne Park’s major show courts to be known by a number: opened with the grounds in 1988, 3,000 seats, shaded since 2020, and reachable on a ground pass, which makes it the best value on the site for a seeded first-round match. It took a sponsor’s name five tournaments after this one and is ANZ Arena from 2026. In 2021 it played 40 main-draw matches — more than any other court that carries a number, and more than two of the show courts.
Show 37 earlier matchesHide 37 earlier matches
Olmos
Guarachi / 
Ostapenko / 
Nam / Court 5—16 matches
NielsenShow 8 earlier matchesHide 8 earlier matches
Court 6—19 matches
Show 12 earlier matchesHide 12 earlier matches
Arneodo / Court 7—23 matches
Cabal
Mertens / 
Sabalenka (2)✓
Barty / 
BradyShow 16 earlier matchesHide 16 earlier matches
Damir DžumhurCourt 8—22 matches
Show 14 earlier matchesHide 14 earlier matches
Basilashvili / Court 10—12 matches
Show 6 earlier matchesHide 6 earlier matches
Court 12—16 matches
RainaShow 8 earlier matchesHide 8 earlier matches
Court 13—31 matches
Show 25 earlier matchesHide 25 earlier matches
Court 14—16 matches
Show 8 earlier matchesHide 8 earlier matches
Hugo DellienCourt 15—16 matches
EscobarShow 8 earlier matchesHide 8 earlier matches
Court 16—15 matches
Show 8 earlier matchesHide 8 earlier matches
Court 17—28 matches
QureshiShow 21 earlier matchesHide 21 earlier matches
Why do the numbered courts start at 3?
The numbered courts that hosted 2021 main-draw tennis are Court 3, then 5 to 8, then 10, and 12 to 17. There is no Court 1, 2 or 4, because the first two numbers were spent on show courts that outgrew them: Margaret Court Arena opened in 1988 as Show Court 1, and 1573 Arena is Show Court 2 under a sponsor’s name. Court 3 kept its number through this tournament and the four after it, and became ANZ Arena days before the 2026 edition.
Court 10 is the one this edition has and the three after it do not: it drew twelve main-draw matches here, then no championship tennis again until 2026. Courts 9 and 11 appear nowhere in this record. At the far end of the range, 2021 played on both Court 16 and Court 17 — they carried 43 matches between them — which the 2022 and 2023 tournaments did too; the 2024 tournament used 17 and not 16, and the 2025 and 2026 tournaments used neither.
One show court is missing from this plan that a later visitor would expect: Kia Arena was built for the 2022 tournament, so in 2021 the grounds ran four show courts rather than five.
The pale courts around the edge of the plan are practice and public courts, including the National Tennis Centre’s. They host no championship matches and carry no numbers on the public plan, so they stay unlabelled here too.
Matches are listed in the order they were played, on Australian Eastern Daylight Time — eleven hours ahead of UTC, and far enough east that a day session here was the evening before at home. Each start time is the tournament’s own record of when that match began; where the record did not survive, the match keeps its place in the day’s order without a time rather than borrowing one from another source.
Two matches are absent from every slate: the mixed doubles quarter-finals of 16 February, which the tournament posted without a court and never published one for. They are left off rather than placed on a guess.
The grounds plan is drawn from OpenStreetMap building footprints (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL).