The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. The Australian Open starts in the middle of January and continues for two weeks coinciding with the Australia Day holiday. It features men's and women's singles; men's, women's and mixed doubles; junior's championships; and wheelchair, legends and exhibition events. Until 1987, it was played on grass courts, but since then three types of hardcourt surfaces have been used: green-coloured Rebound Ace up to 2007 and blue Plexicushion from 2008 to 2019. Since 2020, it has been played on blue GreenSet.
The Grand Slam in tennis is the achievement of winning all four major championships in one discipline in a calendar year. In doubles, a Grand Slam may be achieved as a team or as an individual with different partners. Winning all four major championships consecutively but not within the same calendar year is referred to as a "non-calendar-year Grand Slam", while winning the four majors at any point during the course of a career is known as a "Career Grand Slam".
Mats Arne Olof Wilander is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. From 1982 to 1988, he won seven major singles titles, and one major men's doubles title. His breakthrough came suddenly and unexpectedly when he won the 1982 French Open at the age of 17.
Jan Stefan Edberg is a Swedish former professional tennis player. A major practitioner of the serve-and-volley style of tennis, he won six Grand Slam singles titles and three Grand Slam men's doubles titles between 1985 and 1996. He is one of only two men in the Open Era to have been ranked world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, the other being John McEnroe. Edberg also won the Masters Grand Prix and was a part of the Swedish Davis Cup-winning team four times. In addition, he won four Masters Series titles, four Championship Series titles and the unofficial 1984 Olympic tournament, was ranked in the singles top 10 for ten successive years, and ranked nine years in the top 5. After retirement, Edberg began coaching Roger Federer in January 2014, with this partnership ending in December 2015.
Natalya "Natasha" Maratovna Zvereva is a former professional tennis player from Belarus. She was the first major athlete in the Soviet Union to demand publicly that she should be able to keep her tournament earnings. Zvereva and her main doubles partner Gigi Fernández are the most successful women's doubles team since Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver.
Michael Jeremy Bates is a British former professional tennis player. He was ranked UK number 1 in 1987 and from 1989 to 1994. He reached a career-high ATP world ranking of 54 from 17 April 1995 to 23 April 1995.
Steffi Graf defeated Chris Evert in the final, 6–1, 7–6(7–3) to win the women's singles tennis title at the 1988 Australian Open. It was her first Australian Open title, her second major title overall, and her first step towards completing the first, and so far only Golden Slam in the history of pedestrian tennis. She did not lose a set during the tournament. This was the first major final played under a roof; there was a 1-hour and 23-minute delay to close the roof at 1–1 in the first set.
Melanie Jayne South is a former English tennis player. She won six singles and 24 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 2 February 2009, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 99. On 9 March 2009, she peaked at No. 120 in the doubles rankings.
The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour is the elite professional tennis circuit organised by the ATP tour. The 2000 ATP Tour calendar comprises the Grand Slam tournaments, the tennis event at the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Tennis Masters Series, the ATP International Series Gold, the ATP International Series, the ATP World Team Cup, the Tennis Masters Cup and the ATP Tour World Doubles Championships. Also included in the 2000 calendar are the Davis Cup and the Hopman Cup, which do not distribute ranking points, and are both organised by the ITF.
Katie Charlotte Boulter is an English professional tennis player. On 4 March 2024, she reached her best WTA singles ranking of world No. 27. On 31 December 2018, she peaked at No. 431 in the doubles rankings. She is the current British No. 1 in women's singles. She has won three singles titles on the WTA Tour as well as seven singles titles and four doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.
Katie Swan is a British tennis player.
Tereza Mihalíková is a Slovak tennis player. She has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 42 by the WTA, attained on 30 January 2023. She has won one WTA doubles title and three WTA Challenger Tour doubles titles, along with eight singles and 19 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.
Anna Nikolayevna Kalinskaya is a Russian professional tennis player. Ranked by the WTA, she reached a career-high of No. 24 in singles in February 2024, and No. 49 in doubles in February 2023. On the WTA Tour, she has won three doubles titles. She also has won one singles title on the WTA Challenger Tour, and seven singles and nine doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. Her best singles performance at a major is reaching the quarterfinals at the 2024 Australian Open.
Russell Barlow is a former professional tennis player from Australia.
The 2019 Australian Open was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park from 14 to 27 January 2019. It was the 107th edition of the Australian Open, the 51st in the Open Era, and the first Grand Slam of the year. The tournament consisted of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Junior and wheelchair players competed in singles and doubles tournaments. The 2019 Australian Open was the first Australian Open to feature final set tie-breaks.
This article displays the qualifying draw for women's singles at the 1988 Australian Open.
Katie Volynets is an American tennis player. She achieved a career-high singles ranking of No. 73 by the WTA on 17 June 2024.
Aryna Sabalenka defeated Elena Rybakina in the final, 4–6, 6–3, 6–4 to win the women's singles tennis title at the 2023 Australian Open. It was her first major singles title. Sabalenka dropped just one set during the tournament, to Rybakina in the championship match. Rybakina became the first Kazakhstani player to progress past the fourth round, and the first player since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to defeat three consecutive major champions in a single edition of the Australian Open. By reaching the final, Rybakina made her debut in the top ten of the WTA rankings making her the first player representing Kazakhstan, male or female, ever to reach this milestone.
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