OK, this thread has gone all over the place, but it is about the AO, so I'm going to ask this question: How did the AO ever get to become a Major, anyway, since so many players didn't travel to Oz for it, a great deal of the time? I'm not denigrating it, and we know the players love it. But I was watching the final of last year's RG. They put up the graphic of Martina's 9 Wimbledons and Court's 11 AO's, as it was looking like Nadal was about to win his 12th RG, which he did. And they cited the asterisk on Court's record, because basically only Aussie's played it then. So how DID the Australian Open become one of the 4 most important tournaments in tennis. Just curious about the history of that.
WIKI has a pretty good summary of it.
en.wikipedia.org
and this site
The Tennis Australian Open Championship established itself as one of the world’s Premier tournaments staged annually during the last two weeks of January, with Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia as the elected event host.
www.ausopen.org
excerpt:
"
The tournament was only designated as a major tennis event in 1924, the decision came after a 1923 meeting by the International Lawn Tennis Federation; "
Here is what intrigues me, whose palms were greased at the time to make that decision
by the ITLF ??
It's insane when you think about how physically remote it was and how so many top players (men and women) through the decades ignored it.
ETA: Ok well I just looked up another reason, until 1923, only 3 countries had ever won the Davis Cup , namely US, UK and Austraila. In fact Australia only trailed the US in Davis Cup wins up to 1923.
Now everyone touts about how Don Budge is an all time great because he was the first player to win a calender year Grand Slam in 1938. Well the reality is he was the rare top ranked player to play in all four Majors, before him greats like Bill Tilden or Lacoste didn't bother to go down even when they were the top tennis player in the world.
On the women's side , does anybody doubt that Helen Wills Moody would have won a boatload of AO's in the 30's if she bothered to go, ditto Suzanne Lenglen in the 20's ? These women didn't lose sets, much less matches for years... in 1953 Mo Conollay was the first top non Aussie womens champhion who had made it her mission to win the Grand Slam ie to enter and win the Austraiian, but what the hey the next year she didn't even bother to go back to defend it.
What helped the AO (I know it truly didn't become that until 1969) was that through the late 40's -70's many of the top players (Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong, Roy Emerson, etc) were Aussies, so in a sense they propped the tournament because it was virtually mandatory for them. Aussie dominance of Davis Cup during this time is legendary.
In my lifetime, by the mid to late 70's the AO was a joke, as most non Aussies avoided the grass tourney. What does it tell you that Borg made 6 consecutive Wimbledon finals and never played the AO during that time? It was usually played during the winter holidays and one year it was even played twice. I'd say as a genuine Major it wasn't until around the Sampras era that all the men players felt it almost mandatory to play it as an equal Major to the other 3, especially with the Melbourne new facilites in 1988.
The irony is that now it's the most attended of the all the Majors and it's status is not in dispute at all.
And what does it have to do with Australian people/players? 
