The Australian Open is deeply compromised. It has to be to survive

At least three high-profile players have objected to how they are treated by Australian crowds and media. American Danielle Collins didn’t take kindly to Australians behaving like a footy crowd when she was playing Destanee Aiava. Djokovic got up on his hind legs and demanded an apology from a TV journalist making some limp fun of Serbian spectators.

America’s Ben Shelton thought some post-game courtside questions, inoffensive in an Australian context, were “disrespectful”. The Melbourne January heat is annually disrespectful. Umpires judging let calls gets up players’ noses. There is doubtless much more, behind the scenes, that players don’t like, and in response the Open is led into a maze of compromises.

Crowd behaviour is reportedly worse at the US Open, but there’s no threat to the US Open’s grand slam status. The physical drain on athletes can be worse at Roland Garros, but its legitimacy is beyond question. It rains at Wimbledon – it’s in England – and only the outliers prefer grass, but Wimbledon is Wimbledon.

The Australian Open must keep proving itself. We forget that “grand slam” status is an agreed fiction between players, spectators and administrators. Australia’s place in the four derives from tennis pre-history. There’s nothing inevitable about it, and from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, its standing seemed doomed. Overseas players hated the pre-Christmas timeslot and stayed away. Australia was lucky if it could attract a headliner or two. Our own glory days were fading like the Kooyong grass.

If there were a China or Qatar or Saudi Arabia offering untold treasure to be the “fourth slam” at that time, chances are they would have got it, and by now the tennis Australian Open would have as much star power as the Australian Open in golf. A concerted effort in the late 1980s retrieved the Open, and isn’t taken for granted. The result is an uneasy mix of cultural cringe and cultural adaptation. Australia bends over backwards to indulge the pissheads et al off the court and the demanding personalities on the court. The TV broadcasters have to be gratified and controlled simultaneously. Traditionalists have to be given what they want (great tennis) and also what they don’t want (people who turn up for something other than tennis). It’s a fine balance, and each year the Open stretches itself further to accommodate conflicting interests.

In his relationship with the Open, Djokovic personifies all of these tensions. Djokovic champions the Open, while also being its greatest champion. His career record needs the Australian Open to retain its prestige. So he gets to be the boss. With the stewards of the Open sucking up to him, he expects everyone else to do the same. The Open itself – and, through its apologies for offending his dignity, the broadcaster – are locked in this uncomfortable alliance. Even if many viewers are watching to see him lose, they’re still watching.

Loading

It’s impossible to predict where the Australian Open will stand in 10 ro 20 years. It’s a deeply compromised event now, but those compromises are arguably necessary to sustain its growth and hold on to its standing. Beijing and the oil states will escalate their challenge with the lures of climate control, six-star facilities for all, well-behaved crowds, broadcasters who don’t do satire and courtside interviewers who don’t do cheekiness.

As time marches on, traditions will recede further into the past, and the centre of the tennis world will wonder why Australia is special. To keep hold of the “fourth slam”, Australia will keep stretching the elastic. Djokovic will still be here, still winning, still taking injury timeouts. Global events don’t take place in a vacuum, away from the stresses on globalism itself.

Those who are enjoying it now, in their unprecedented numbers, should make the most of it with all its flipsides.