Tennis Australia (TA) chief executive Craig Tiley said he was thrilled with the turnout.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t feel like it’s the first day of qualifiers, it feels in many ways like it’s the first day of the event,” Tiley said on Monday.<\/p>\n
“But this is the first day of 21 days of activity, entertainment, sport.”<\/p>\n
But one source who works at the Australian Open in events told the ABC \u2014 speaking on the condition of anonymity \u2014 that they had seen significant complaints from people not realising the main draw did not start until Sunday.<\/p>\n
![\"Jannik](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8dfd2e85f3c755db86d87a1b4d253614.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Many fans get to see top players in exhibition matches and practice sessions during opening week of the Australian Open. (Getty: Andy Cheung)<\/p>\n
The source said lots of people, including first timers to the event and families, have been left confused and frustrated after assuming “Opening Week” meant week one of the main tournament and not qualifiers.<\/p>\n
Kylie Gualano is one such fan, who said she purchased 10 day-pass tickets via the Ticketmaster app across Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for herself, her kids and in-laws.<\/p>\n
“There was no indication to suggest it was qualifying and advertising had said that was the Opening Week, so I didn’t think twice \u2014 although I didn’t think about dates, just chose the first available tickets,” Gualano told the ABC.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t until Monday night that we realised that other tournaments were on [in Adelaide, Kooyong and Hobart], so we tried to Google it.<\/p>\n
“When you Google ‘When does the Aus Open start?’ it says from the 12th of Jan, so it took a while to figure it out.”<\/p>\n
In 2025, the main draw kicked off on Sunday, January 12.<\/p>\n
TA told the ABC: “Qualifying has been a key part of the ticketing promotion” for Opening Week this year.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/6b76a28b973b20c973bc0aabfba3df37.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The Australian Open website page dedicated to Opening Week. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“This is the third year of AO Opening week, and we’ve implemented an extensive awareness campaign to build excitement around the qualifying tournament,” TA said.<\/p>\n
But Gualano shared the imagery of those ground passes below, which feature images of defending champions Jannik Sinner and Madison Keys, as well as top seeds like Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n
![\"Tickets](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/9c281a7163796558c36a54c4263a1dd7.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Ground passes for the Australian Open opening week. (Supplied.)<\/p>\n
Nowhere does it say the matches on those days are “qualifiers”.<\/p>\n
The Opening Week features charity exhibitions matches, with top players or noteworthy public figures, music performances including Hot Chip and The Presets, practice matches between players and activities for kids.<\/p>\n
“I was disappointed and annoyed initially as we had purchased for other people and they were looking forward to it,” Gualano said.<\/p>\n
“But my [16-year-old] son went yesterday and had a good time. There was food and other activations available.<\/p>\n
“But it was a big crowd and difficult to get seats on some courts, which is crazy for qualifying.”<\/p>\n
TA says it wants all fans to “feel informed and \u2026 we are always open to feedback”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first week of the Australian Open has seen record crowds across the opening three days, but some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[172744,172745,172746,172747,172748,7641,95542,172743,49,48,44154,172749,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-410361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-aus-open-2026","9":"tag-aus-open-opening-week","10":"tag-aus-open-qualifiers","11":"tag-aus-open-week-one","12":"tag-aus-open-week-one-attendance","13":"tag-australian-open","14":"tag-australian-open-2026","15":"tag-australian-open-crowds","16":"tag-ca","17":"tag-canada","18":"tag-craig-tiley","19":"tag-record-crowds-aus-open","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}