The Australian Open has finally come to its end after a highly intense and entertaining couple of weeks. For Nine, it basked in similar glory to grand slam champions Carlos Alcaraz and Elena Rybakina, reaching over 14.31 million Australians across the two week broadcast\u2014an increase of 9.3 per cent year-on-year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s 2026 Australian Open men\u2019s final has posted dominant rankings, comparing to the likes of last year\u2019s NRL<\/a> and AFL grand finals<\/a>. The final captivated the nation as Carlos Alcaraz claimed his maiden Australian Open title in a nail-biting showdown against Novak Djokovic, drawing a national reach of 6.302 million and a national total TV audience of 3.448 million\u2014up 67 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n This sees the tennis men\u2019s final only just edged out by both the AFL (6.4 million) and NRL (6.4 million) grand finals.<\/p>\n The ability to keep up with the two most arguably watched sporting events in Australia was reflected in the year-on-year momentum across all metro markets: Sydney grew 75.5 per cent (732,000 vs 417,000); Melbourne 57.2 per cent (954,000 vs 607,000); Brisbane 95.1 per cent (435,000 vs 223,000); Adelaide 75.9 per cent (204,000 vs 116,000); and Perth 77.3 per cent (195,000 vs 110,000)<\/p>\n However, where Nine saw its most significant growth was across BVOD. Alcaraz\u2019s fierce onslaught of Djokovic was the highest-rating men\u2019s final in VOZ history and the highest-rating AO session on BVOD ever, claiming 905,000 viewers\u2014up 135.7 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n World number one dethroned by Elena Rybakina<\/p>\n The women\u2019s final also dominated its respective night\u2019s ratings. The match that featured a precise and powerful Elena Rybakina, who out muscled Aryna Sabalenka delivered a reach of 3.816 million viewers and an average audience of 2.135 million\u2014up 30.1 per cent year-on-year. Fans haven\u2019t turned to Nine in bigger numbers since the women\u2019s final in 2022\u2014the last time an Aussie (Ash Barty) took home one of the most prestigious trophies on the tennis tour.<\/p>\n Looking at the metro markets, alike the men\u2019s final the women\u2019s also had some significant year-on-year growth: Sydney grew 48.5 per cent (432,000 vs 291,000); Melbourne 34.5 per cent (627,000 vs 466,000); Brisbane 72.9 per cent (268,000 vs 155,000); Adelaide 26.8 per cent (123,000 vs 97,000); and Perth 6.3 per cent (84,000 vs 79,000).<\/p>\n The win not only secured Rybakina\u2019s first Australian Open victory, but it also helped Nine clinch a BVOD audience of 500,000\u2014up 106.6 per cent on last year.<\/p>\n Semi-final blockbusters working in Nine\u2019s favour<\/p>\n The 2026 Australian Open day 13 night session, featuring the epic semi-final battle where Carlos Alcaraz claimed victory over Alexander Zverev, achieved a reach of 3.657 million viewers, a an average audience of 1.974 million (up 83.6 per cent on the same night last year) and a BVOD audience of 427,000\u2014up 160.6 per cent year-on-year. These semi-final numbers can be attributed to a five and a half hour war between two of the best tennis players in the world.<\/p>\n The other men\u2019s semi final broadcasted on the second night session of Day 13, featured Novak Djokovic fight to an incredible five set win over defending AO champion Jannik Sinner, and it recorded a reach of 3.209 million, an average audience of 1.757 million (up 65.9 per cent on the same night last year) and a BVOD audience of 456,000\u2014up 151.9 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 2026 Australian Open has once again proven it\u2019s the undisputed king of the summer of sport. The energy was there from the get go \u2013 the \u2018one-point slam\u2019 during the pre-week was a massive moment that really ignited the fans early and set the stage for everything that followed,\u201d said Brent Williams, Nine\u2019s director of Sport.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing such huge year-on-year growth across the fortnight is a credit to the incredible athletes and the world-class production from our Wide World of Sports team. By partnering with Tennis Australia, we\u2019ve delivered a multi-platform experience that brings fans closer to their heroes than ever.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Australian viewers have responded in record numbers, proving that Nine remains the premier destination for world-class sport.\u201d<\/p>\n Nine quickly turns its attention to the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games.<\/p>\n Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts<\/p>\n Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.<\/p>\n \t\tSubscribe\n\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Open has finally come to its end after a highly intense and entertaining couple of weeks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,6571,761,762,20975,158,85],"class_list":["post-454727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-open","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nine","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}