{"id":447742,"date":"2026-02-01T19:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/447742\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:26:09","slug":"novak-djokovics-2012-australian-open-racket-sells-for-record-540000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/447742\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic\u2019s 2012 Australian Open racket sells for record $540,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Australian Open men\u2019s singles final <\/a>between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic<\/a> holds the crown for the most Grand Slam men\u2019s tennis titles and now holds the crown for the most expensive tennis memorabilia item ever sold publicly.<\/p>\n

The tennis racket Djokovic used during the 2012 Australian Open final, when he beat Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam final in history (five hours, 53 minutes), sold for $540,000<\/a> through SCP Auctions on Saturday night. SCP\u2019s pre-auction estimate on it was $200,000-plus.<\/p>\n

This sale occurred on the cusp of Djokovic\u2019s 38th Grand Slam final, where he faced Carlos Alcaraz to conclude the 2026 Australian Open. Alcaraz went on to win<\/a>, becoming the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam at 22 years old.<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s 2012 Australian Open final racket. (SCP Auctions)<\/p>\n

The Djokovic racket passed an autographed Alcaraz trading card<\/a> to become the highest-priced tennis item sold at auction. Alcaraz\u2019s 2022 NetPro Premium one-of-one autographed rookie card with a Gem-Mint 10 grade from Professional Sports Authenticator sold for $237,907.32 through Goldin on June 28.<\/p>\n

The previous all-time racket sale occurred in October when an Alcaraz racket used in the 2023 Wimbledon finals sold via auction for $173,000 through Prestige. The previous record for any Djokovic racket was for one used during his 2016 French Open final win over Andy Murray, which sold for $107,000 in November 2023 through SCP.<\/p>\n

According to SCP, Djokovic\u2019s racket has been professionally photomatched to championship point in the final as well as his semifinal match against Murray and quarterfinal match against David Ferrer. The racket was consigned by the man Djokovic gave it to following the 2012 final. In a letter of provenance shared on SCP\u2019s website (but with the consignor\u2019s name concealed), the man wrote that he had been seated in the front row with some companions, right behind Djokovic\u2019s bench and cheered him on in French and English, which he said Djokovic acknowledged at several points during the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the final point was won and Novak Djokovic returned to his bench, the moment became deeply personal,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cAs he approached us, he smiled, said \u201cmerci beaucoup\u201d, and personally handed us his match winning racket, along with his torn match-winning T-shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Australian Open men\u2019s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,8530,82,575,593],"class_list":["post-447742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-memorabilia-collectibles","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447742","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=447742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}