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Dan HajduckyFeb 1, 2026, 02:01 AM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Dan Hajducky is a staff writer for ESPN. He has an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University and played on the men’s soccer teams at Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities.<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n The tennis racket that 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic<\/a> used to win the 2012 Australian Open sold for $540,000 (including buyer’s premium) with SCP Auctions on Saturday, shattering the records paid for a tennis racket and piece of tennis memorabilia.<\/p>\n The 2012 Australian Open final between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal<\/a> is still the longest Grand Slam final at 5 hours, 53 minutes and is widely considered one of the greatest tennis matches ever played.<\/p>\n Djokovic played in his 11th Australian Open title Sunday but lost in four sets<\/a> to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>. Djokovic had been looking to become the only player in tennis history to win 25 Grand Slam titles.<\/p>\n The previous record paid for a tennis racket or item of tennis memorabilia was $173,066 for the racket Alcaraz used to beat Djokovic in 2023 for his first Wimbledon title.<\/p>\n The photo-matching company Resolution Photomatching pegged the racket not only to the championship point — Djokovic subsequently handed the racket to the consignor shortly after winning, according to SCP Auctions — but to his quarterfinal and semifinal victories. The auction house’s vice president, Brendan Wells, told ESPN that the California-based auction house was thrilled to have “tripled the previous record for any tennis item.”<\/p>\n “It proves once again that collectors with the deepest pockets want the best of the best,” Wells said. “Half a million for the greatest men’s player’s racket, from the longest Grand Slam final, against his biggest rival, photo-matched to championship point? When you put it all together, why not? Another well-deserved record for the Djoker.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan HajduckyFeb 1, 2026, 02:01 AM ET CloseDan Hajducky is a staff writer for ESPN. He has an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-443211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}