The 2012 Australian Open was a tennis tournament that took place in Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, from 16 to 29 January 2012. It was the 100th edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam event of the year. The tournament consisted of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles play. Junior and wheelchair players competed in singles and doubles tournaments.

Novak Djokovic Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Новак Ђоковић, Novak Đoković, separator=" / ", ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players#Weeks at N ...

successfully defended his title after he defeated

Rafael Nadal Rafael Nadal Parera (born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for ...

in the longest grand slam final in history. The 2012 final passed the

2008 Wimbledon final 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. Etymology English ''eight'', from Old English '', æhta'', Proto-Germanic ''*ahto'' is a direct continuation of Proto-Indo-European '' *oḱtṓ(w)-'', and as such cognate wi ...

for the record, finishing after 5 hours and 53 minutes of play. Kim Clijsters was the defending champion for the women's singles, but lost to

Victoria Azarenka Victoria Fiodaraŭna Azarenka (born 31 July 1989) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), having held the position for a total of 51 weeks ...

in the semifinals. Azarenka defeated

Maria Sharapova Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (, ; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks. Sharapova won 36 WTA Tour-level sin ...

for her first Grand Slam title; and over took

Caroline Wozniacki Caroline Wozniacki (; born 11 July 1990) is an inactive Danish professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA, hold ...

as the number one ranked player on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

. In the doubles

Leander Paes Leander Adrian Paes ( ; born 17 June 1973) is an Indian former professional tennis player and the first Asian man to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He is regarded as one of the greatest doubles tennis players of all-tim ...

and

Radek Štěpánek Radek Štěpánek (; born 27 November 1978) is a Czech former professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking was world No. 8 and best doubles ranking was world No. 4. Štěpánek's biggest achievements are reaching two Masters 1000 ...

won the title. Paes completed a career Grand Slam with the title while Štěpánek won his first Slam. On the women's side an all Russian duo of

Svetlana Kuznetsova Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova (born 27 June 1985) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as high as world No. 2 in singles and world No. 3 in doubles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Kuznetsova won 18 singl ...

and

Vera Zvonareva Vera Igorevna Zvonareva ( rus, Вера Игоревна Звонарёва, p=ˈvʲerə ˈiɡərʲɪvnə zvənɐˈrʲɵvə, a=Vera zvonareva.ogg; born 7 September 1984) is a Russian former professional tennis player. Her career-high singles ran ...

took the title. The mixed event was won by Bethanie Mattek-Sands and

Horia Tecău Horia Tecău (; born January 19, 1985) is a Romanians, Romanian former professional tennis player who specialised in doubles. He is a three-time Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam champion, having won the 2015 Wimbledon Championships – Men's doub ...

Tournament

The 2012 Australian Open took place in January 2012 at Melbourne Park. The men's singles was staged for the 100th time. There have been 59 different previous winners and the 100th staging of the event was marked by a special coin and the 2012 Champion received a special medallion. The tournament also marked 50 years since

Rod Laver Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Laver was ranked as the World number 1 ranked male tennis players, world number 1 professional player indisputably for five years from 1965 to 1969, ...

won his first Grand Slam. For the first time

Hawk-Eye Hawk-Eye is a computer vision system used to visually track the trajectory of a ball and display a profile of its statistically most likely path as a moving image. It is used in more than 20 major sports, including cricket, tennis, Gaelic foo ...

ball tracking system was used on the Margaret Court Arena, while

Ken Fletcher Kenneth Norman Fletcher (15 June 1940 – 11 February 2006) was an Australian tennis player who won numerous doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Biography He was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia to parents Norm and Ethel Flet ...

was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame.

Points and prize money

Point distribution

Below is a series of tables for each of the competitions showing the ranking points on offer for each event.

Seniors points

Junior points

Wheelchair points

Prize money

The 2012 Australian Open was the richest Grand Slam tournament in history, with the singles champions pocketing 2.3 million dollars. All prize money is in Australian dollars (AUD); doubles prize money is distributed per pair.

Men's and women's singles

*Winners: $2,300,000 *Runners-up: $1,150,000 *Semi-finalists: $437,000 *Quarter-finalists: $218,500 *Fourth round: $109,250 *Third round: $54,625 *Second round: $33,300 *First round: $20,000

Men's and women's doubles

*Winners: $454,500 *Runners-up: $227,250 *Semi-finalists: $113,000 *Quarter-finalists: $56,000 *Third round: $31,500 *Second round: $17,200 *First round: $9,600

Mixed doubles

* Winners: $135,500 * Runners-up: $67,500 * Semi-finalists: $33,900 * Quarter-finalists: $15,500 * Second round: $7,800 * First round: $3,800

Day-by-day summaries

Events

Seniors

Men's singles

was the defending champion and won in the final 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7^(5–7), 7–5 against

entering the season as reigning world number 1 for the first time of his career. It was the longest match in the history of the Australian Open, and in fact, the longest ever singles final in the Open Era in Grand Slam history; clocked at 5 hours and 53 minutes and ending after midnight with Nadal memorable saying after the match "good morning." It marked the fifth Grand Slam of Djokovic's career and his 3rd Australian Open. It also marked the first time that he had defended a Grand Slam title. After winning the 2012 Australian Open, Djokovic had an opportunity to become the first man since

in 1969 to hold all four Grand Slams at the same time, after winning the previous two in 2011. Nadal became the first player to lose in the final of three consecutive Grand Slams in the Open Era. Championship match result

defeated

, 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7^(5–7), 7–5

Women's singles

won her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first Belarusian player to win a Grand Slam in singles, by defeating

in the final. She also became the 21st player to be ranked World No. 1 by the

Women's Tennis Association The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future fo ...

on 30 January 2012 as a result of this win. It was Azarenka's 2nd title of the year and 10th of her career. Championship match result

defeated

, 6–3, 6–0

Men's doubles

defeated

Bob Bryan Robert "Bob" Charles Bryan (born April 29, 1978) is an American former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest doubles tennis players of all time, Bryan was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked doubles tennis pl ...

Mike Bryan Michael Carl Bryan (born April 29, 1978) is an American former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest doubles tennis players of all time, Bryan was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's doubles for a record 506 weeks ...

, 7–6^(7–1), 6–2

Women's doubles

defeated

Sara Errani Sara Errani (; born 29 April 1987) is an Italian professional tennis player. Errani is one of only seven women who have completed a career Grand Slam (tennis)#Golden Slam, Golden Slam in doubles. She is an Olympic Games gold medalist, a former ...

Roberta Vinci Roberta Vinci (; born 18 February 1983) is an Italian former tennis player. In doubles tennis, she is a Grand Slam (tennis)#Career Grand Slam, Career Grand Slam champion having won all Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major tournaments and reac ...

, 5–7, 6–4, 6–3

Mixed doubles

Bethanie Mattek-Sands /

defeated

Elena Vesnina Elena Sergeyevna Vesnina (born 1 August 1986) is a Russian former professional tennis player who was List of WTA number 1 ranked doubles tennis players, world No. 1 in doubles. Vesnina is a four-time Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam champion, h ...

, 6–3, 5–7, 0–3

Juniors

Boys' singles

Luke Saville Luke Saville (born 1 February 1994) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He has had success as a doubles player where he reached his highest ranking of World No. 23 on 8 November 2021. Saville reached the final at the 2020 Austra ...

defeated Filip Peliwo, 6–3, 5–7, 6–4

Girls' singles

Taylor Townsend defeated

Yulia Putintseva Yulia Antonovna Putintseva (, ; born 7 January 1995) is a Russian-born Kazakhstani professional tennis player. She achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 20 on 27 January 2025 and a doubles ranking of No. 76 on 17 March 2025. Puti ...

, 6–1, 3–6, 6–3

Boys' doubles

Liam Broady Liam Tarquin Broady ( ; born 4 January 1994) is a British professional tennis player who competes mainly on the ATP Challenger Tour. He reached a career high ranking of world No. 93 on 25 September 2023. Early and personal life Broady, the young ...

/ Joshua Ward-Hibbert defeated Adam Pavlásek / Filip Veger, 6–3, 6–2

Girls' doubles

Gabrielle Andrews / Taylor Townsend defeated Irina Khromacheva / Danka Kovinić, 5–7, 7–5, 0–6

Other events

Wheelchair men's singles

Maikel Scheffers defeated Nicolas Peifer, 3–6, 7–6^(7–2), 6–0

Wheelchair women's singles

Esther Vergeer defeated

Aniek van Koot Aniek van Koot (born 15 August 1990) is a Dutch wheelchair tennis player who is a former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles. Van Koot has won 26 major titles, having won the 2013 Australian Open, 2013 US Open and 2019 Wimbledon Champion ...

, 6–0, 6–0

Wheelchair quad singles

Peter Norfolk defeated David Wagner, 4–6, 6–4, 6–2

Wheelchair men's doubles

Ronald Vink / Robin Ammerlaan defeated

Stéphane Houdet Stéphane Houdet (born 20 November 1970) is a French wheelchair tennis player. Houdet is a former singles and doubles world number one. In 2014, he became the first man in history to complete the calendar-year Grand Slam in men's wheelchair dou ...

/ Nicolas Peifer, 6–2, 4–6, 6–1

Wheelchair women's doubles

Esther Vergeer /

Sharon Walraven Sharon Walraven (born 19 June 1970, Schaesberg) is a Dutch wheelchair tennis player. She became paraplegic at age 23 after complications following a fall while she was ice-skating. She has won seven Grand Slams doubles titles partnering compatr ...

defeated

Marjolein Buis Marjolein Buis (born 11 January 1988) is a Dutch retired wheelchair tennis player. Buis won 18 singles titles and 52 doubles titles. She won the gold medal in the women's doubles event with Esther Vergeer along with six grand slam doubles and t ...

, 4–6, 6–2, 6–4

Wheelchair quad doubles

Andrew Lapthorne / Peter Norfolk defeated David Wagner / Noam Gershony, 6–4, 6–2

Broadcast

The host broadcaster of the event was the

Seven Network Seven Network (stylised 7Network, and commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is an Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, ...

which ran all day and night coverage on its primary channel and its digital channel 7Two from 11 am until the close of play around midnight Melbourne time. 2012 is the first year Seven has aired live primetime play across the entire country, switching coverage to 7Two for various live

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

and '' Today Tonight'' broadcasts in different time zones of Australia. Associated media partnership Yahoo!7 (co-owned by Seven and

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

) saw more than 100 000 viewers check into live match coverage via the Fango mobile app, with check-ins peaking during the Hewitt vs. Djokovic match in the Open's fourth round. The event was also shown in Australia on

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...

which broadcast secondary matches live.

Singles players

Men's singles Women's singles

Singles seeds

Seeds and Rankings are as of 9 January 2012 and Points are as of 16 January 2012.

Men's singles

Withdrawn players (men's singles)

Women's singles

Withdrawn players (women's singles)

Main draw wildcard entries

Men's singles

Kenny de Schepper Kenny de Schepper (born 29 May 1987) is a French professional tennis player who competed on the ATP Challenger Tour. He has a career high ATP rankings of world No. 62 achieved in April 2014 in singles and No. 152 in doubles achieved in February ...

* James Duckworth *

Lleyton Hewitt Lleyton Glynn Hewitt (born 24 February 1981) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) fo ...

Marinko Matosevic Marinko Matosevic (, ; born 8 August 1985) is a retired Australian professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking is World No. 39, which he achieved in February 2013. Matosevic defeated top players including Milos Raonic, Marin Č ...

* Benjamin Mitchell * Greg Jones * Tatsuma Ito *

Jesse Levine Jesse Levine (born October 15, 1987) is an American-Canadian former professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high singles rank of world No. 69 on October 1, 2012. Levine represented the United States through 2012, and he represented Ca ...

Women's singles

Ashleigh Barty Ashleigh Jacinta Barty (born 24 April 1996) is an Australian former professional tennis player and cricketer. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Assoc ...

Casey Dellacqua Casey Dellacqua ( ; born 11 February 1985) is an Australian former professional tennis player and current commentator. Her best singles results on the WTA Tour have been semifinal appearances at the 2012 Texas Tennis Open and 2014 Birmingham ...

* Olivia Rogowska *

Isabella Holland Isabella Holland (born 2 January 1992) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Career Holland's preferred surfaces are clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phy ...

* Bojana Bobusic *

Madison Keys Madison Keys (born February 17, 1995) is an American professional tennis player. She has been WTA rankings, ranked as high as world No. 5 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA. Keys has won ten WTA Tour-level career singles ...

* Aravane Rezaï *

Zhang Shuai Zhang Shuai ( zh , s = 张帅 , p = Zhāng Shuài ; ; born 21 January 1989) is a Chinese professional tennis player. She has a career-high doubles WTA rankings, ranking of world No. 2, achieved in July 2022 and a singles ranking of No. 22 re ...

Men's doubles

* James Duckworth / Adam Feeney *

Matthew Ebden Matthew Ebden (born 26 November 1987) is an Australian professional tennis player who reached a career high of List of ATP number 1 ranked doubles tennis players, world No. 1 in doubles. Ebden is a three-time Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ch ...

/ Chris Guccione * Colin Ebelthite /

Peter Luczak Peter Luczak (, ; born 31 August 1979) is a retired professional tennis player from Australia. His career-high ATP singles ranking was World No. 64, achieved in October 2009. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in Delhi, Luczak won the Gold i ...

* Greg Jones /

John-Patrick Smith John-Patrick Tracey "JP" Smith (born 24 January 1989) is an Australian professional tennis player who specializes in doubles. He reached his highest ATP singles ranking of world No. 108 on 28 September 2015, and his highest doubles ranking of N ...

* Benjamin Mitchell / Matt Reid *

/ Andrew Whittington

Women's doubles

* Monique Adamczak / Olivia Rogowska *

/ Laura Robson * Stephanie Bengson / Tyra Calderwood * Daniella Jeflea / Viktorija Rajicic * Sacha Jones / Bojana Bobusic * Tammi Patterson / Storm Sanders *

Sally Peers Sally Peers (born 1 June 1991) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Her career-high singles ranking by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is 145, which she achieved on 11 April 2011. Her highest doubles ranking of world ...

Mixed doubles

/ Benjamin Mitchell * Kimiko Date-Krumm /

Kei Nishikori is a Japanese professional tennis player. He is the only Japanese man in the Open Era to have been ranked in the top five in singles, reaching his career-high ranking of world No. 4 in March 2015, and the second man in history to do so after ...

Jelena Dokić Jelena Dokic (; ; born 12 April 1983) is an Australian tennis commentator, sports analyst, former professional player and public speaker. Her highest ranking as a tennis player was world No. 4, in August 2002. She won WTA Tour events on all su ...

/ Paul Hanley *

Jarmila Gajdošová Jarmila Wolfe (née Gajdošová, formerly Groth; born 26 April 1987) is a Slovak-Australian former tennis player. In her career, she won two singles titles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour, as well as 14 singles and ten doubles titles on ...

Bruno Soares Bruno Fraga Soares (; born 27 February 1982) is a Brazilian former professional tennis player who specialised in doubles. A doubles specialist, Soares won six Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major titles, the 2016 Australian Open – Men's d ...

Jelena Janković Jelena Janković ( sr-Cyrl, Јелена Јанковић, ; born 28 February 1985) is a Serbian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the W ...

Bernard Tomic Bernard Tomic (; , ; born 21 October 1992) is an Australian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 17 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Tomic has won four singles titles on the ATP To ...

* Olivia Rogowska /

Protected ranking

Men's singles

* Benjamin Becker *

Tommy Haas Thomas Mario Haas (; born 3 April 1978) is a German–American former professional tennis player. He competed on the ATP Tour from 1996 to 2017, and was ranked world No. 2 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in May ...

Women's singles

Anna Chakvetadze Anna Djambuliovna Chakvetadze ( ; born 5 March 1987) is a Russian former professional tennis player. In her career, Chakvetadze won eight WTA Tour singles titles. She reached her highest singles ranking of world No. 5 in September 2007, after r ...

Qualifying entries

Men's singles

Florent Serra Florent Lucien Serra (; born 28 February 1981) is a French retired professional tennis player. A right-hander, he won two ATP titles during his career and achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 36 in June 2006. Career Early life a ...

* Peter Gojowczyk * Danai Udomchoke * Andrey Golubev * James Ward * Jesse Huta Galung * Lukáš Lacko * Denis Kudla * Jürgen Zopp * Matteo Viola * Alexander Kudryavtsev *

Roberto Bautista Agut Roberto Bautista Agut (; born 14 April 1988) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He has been ATP rankings, ranked as high as world No. 9 by the Association of Tennis Professionals, ATP in singles, achieved on 4 November 2019. Bautista Agut ...

* Frederik Nielsen *

Alex Kuznetsov Alex Kuznetsov (born February 5, 1987) is a retired professional tennis player. He is a former hitting partner of Maria Sharapova. Personal life Kuznetsov was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Kyiv, Ukraine). His family moved to t ...

* Björn Phau * Illya Marchenko The following players received as a lucky loser: * Rik de Voest

Women's singles

* Laura Robson *

Irena Pavlovic Irena Pavlovic (, ; born 28 September 1988) is a French former tennis player of Serbian descent. (Biography)Andrea Hlaváčková Andrea is a given name which is common worldwide for both males and females, cognate to Andreas, Andrej and Andrew. Origin of the name The name derives from the Greek word ἀνήρ (''anēr''), genitive ἀνδρός (''andrós''), that ...

Stefanie Vögele Stefanie Vögele (born 10 March 1990) is a Swiss professional tennis player. She achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 42 on 11 November 2013. Her highest WTA rankings, WTA ranking in doubles is 100, which she reached on 5 January ...

* Alison Riske * Maria João Köhler * Paula Ormaechea *

Nina Bratchikova Nina Bratchikova (; born 28 June 1985) is a Russian former professional tennis player. Bratchikova won one doubles title on the WTA Challenger Tour, and in addition nine singles and 35 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. On 10 December ...

* Valeria Savinykh *

Chang Kai-chen Chang Kai-chen ( zh, t=張凱貞, p=Zhāng Kǎizhēn; ; born January 13, 1991), also known as Kelly Chang, is a Taiwanese former professional tennis player.https://www.wtatennis.com/players/313923/- Career Her father is Chang Chin-lai and mo ...

* Varvara Lepchenko * Jamie Hampton

Withdrawals

The following players were accepted directly into the main tournament, but withdrew with injuries.

Men's singles

Women's singles

Juniors

Below is a list of the sixteen seeds for the boys and girls singles and the eight qualifiers for each event.

Singles seeds

=Boys' singles

=Girls' singles

Wheelchair tennis

The field consisted of top seven ranked players in the men's and women's singles, the three top three ranked players in the quad singles category and one wildcard was chosen for each draw.

Singles seeds

=Men's singles

= * Maikel Scheffers (1) *

(2)

=Women

= * Esther Vergeer (1) *

(2)

=Quad

= * David Wagner (1) * Peter Norfolk (2)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Open, 2012 2012 in Australian tennis 2012 ATP World Tour 2012 WTA Tour January 2012 sports events in Australia 2010s in Melbourne 2012 in Victoria (state)