Australian Open 2024: Courts
Sports · Tennis · Australian Open 2024
Courts
The whole tournament happened at Melbourne Park, on the eastern edge of the city — 15 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 FFinal14,82057 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 2024 it staged all five finals, all four singles semi-finals and both men’s doubles semi-finals, and carried 57 main-draw matches — more than any other court.
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Margaret Court ArenaWomen's Doubles SFSemi-finalMixed Doubles SFSemi-final7,50046 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 46 matches it carried the heaviest slate of the fortnight outside Rod Laver Arena, both women’s doubles semi-finals among them.
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John Cain Arena10,50032 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.
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Kia ArenaMixed Doubles SFSemi-final5,00040 matches
The newest court on the grounds and the signature piece of a $271.5 million redevelopment stage: a 5,000-seat bowl sunk into the ground between Rod Laver and John Cain arenas, built over the old Eastern Courts 16–23 and opened for the 2022 tournament. A roof structure shades most of the seats without closing over the court, so it plays outdoors in all weather — the largest court here that a rain delay still stops.
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1573 Arena3,00035 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.
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Court 33,00033 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 two tournaments after this one and is ANZ Arena from 2026. In 2024 it played 33 main-draw matches, more than any other court that carries a number.
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Court 5—20 matches
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Court 6—28 matches
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Court 7—26 matches
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Court 8—16 matches
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Court 12—15 matches
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Court 13—28 matches
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Court 14—14 matches
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Court 15—3 matches
Court 17—18 matches
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Why do the numbered courts start at 3?
The numbered courts that hosted 2024 main-draw tennis are Court 3, then 5 to 8, 12 to 15, and 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 next, and became ANZ Arena days before the 2026 edition.
Courts 9, 10, 11 and 16 appear nowhere in this record: none drew a main-draw match, and none is in the tournament’s own courts table for 2024. Court 17 is the odd one out the other way — it carried main-draw singles and doubles here, and neither the 2025 nor the 2026 edition put a main-draw match on it.
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.
The grounds plan is drawn from OpenStreetMap building footprints (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL).