To say the Australian Open has suffered from a identity crisis in the past may be an understatement. The annual tennis championships are now the first Grand Slam Championships of the year. Held since 1905, when it was called The Australasian Championships, all of the biggest names in the history of tennis have played in Australia.

The tournament has actually been held in five different cities in Australia and two cities in New Zealand. In 1972 officials decided to hold the tournament in the same city each year. Melbourne was chosen as the host city and the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club as the venue. In 1988, a bigger venue was built in Melbourne at what was then Flinder’s Park. The tournament was now a huge draw and had outgrown Kooyong. The new tennis grounds were modern and massive. Attendance doubled from 1987 to 1988. Australian tennis officials now knew they were on to something. This tournament, which once had a hard time attracting top players and even a consistent date on the pro tennis calendar, now was a destination event.

Tennis is the most popular sport in Australia, and to keep up with the increasing attendance, the Melbourne Park center has been constantly upgraded and expanded. Attendance in 2008 and 2009 were over 600,000 for the two weeks.

The list of winners in Australia reads like a who’s who of tennis history. The early years had winners like Norman Brookes and Anthony Wilding. Once the modern era of tennis started in 1968 the likes of Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, and Guillermo Vilas claimed titles. Many of the top players still hated to travel to Australia at the end of beginning of the year to play. The best players of the 70’s Bjorn Borg, only came to Australia once. And Ilie Nastase never came. One the women’s side, Australian’s Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong dominated the tournament in the 60’s and 70’s. Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert dominated in the 80’s and then Steffi Graf had her reign. The 90’s had winners like Monica Seles and Martina Hingis. Since then, American’s Jennifer Capriati, and Venus and Serena Williams won multiple titles.

Recent winners on the men’s side include all the big names. Stefan Edberg, Ivan Lendl, Jim Courier and of course, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Jimmy Connors only won the Australian Open once, and John McEnroe tried numerous times, but never won. Roger Federer has won the title numerous times, Spain’s Rafael Nadal is also on the winnners list.

The Australian Open is one of the player's favorite events, and the fans in Australia are always rated the best. It should not be overlooked as one of the top Grand Slam tournaments.

This years Australian Open runs from the 17th to the 30th of January. Details of what live Australian Open tennis is being shown between those dates can be found by following the live sports schedules page. In summary though the BBC in the UK will be streaming a huge number of games from this years Australian Open tennis live online. On top of this Bet365 will also be showing a massive number of games live online to viewers in many different countries, just follow the link to place a bet on the Australian Open and watch live with Bet365.