The Australian Open comprises one of the four Grand Slam tournaments in tennis, along with the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. The Grand Slams are generally regarded as the most important and significant yearly competitions in the sport, and yield the most prize money and ranking points of any tournament; for these reasons, they generate the most prestige for the champions, and all of the top ranked players generally make every effort to compete, unless injured.

Though formerly held on a grass court surface, similarly to Wimbledon, since 1987 the court surface for the Australian has been hard court, more like the US Open. Events that take place in the Australian Open include the Men's Singles, the Women's Singles, the Men's Doubles, the Women's Doubles, and the Mixed Doubles events. The Open is notorious for its extremely high temperatures, since it takes place in the Australian summer; many players over the years have had to forfeit matches due to heat exhaustion or fatigue, though recently tournament officials have begun closing the retractable roofs in the major stadiums to reduce temperatures. On the positive side, however, the Australian Open has seldom had to deal with rain delays, unlike Wimbledon, for instance.

The Final of the event is thus the final match of each of the respective draws, where the top two athletes or teams defeat all of their opponents en route to clashing on the last day. There is a Men's singles final, a Women's singles final, a Men's doubles final, a Women's doubles final, and a Mixed Doubles final. The Men's singles final and the Mixed doubles final are scheduled to take place on, Sunday, January 31st, 2010, with the Men's beginning first at 7:30 pm; while the Women's singles final and Men's doubles final are slated to occur on Saturday, January 30th, with the women starting at 7:30 pm. On Friday night, January 29th, the Women's doubles event will take place at 3:00 pm. Typically each final is the most exciting and anticipated match of the tournament, and the tournament organizers construct the draw with the intent of the projected top two athletes in their sport ultimately meeting, although upsets are very common. http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/event_guide/history/year_by_year.html

The Australian Open has been held annually at Melbourne Park since 1905, typically over two weeks in January. Currently, the Australian Open has been organized and overseen by Tennis Australia, formerly known as the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA). For the inaugural Open, in 1905, the location of the tournament was the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in St Kilda Road, Melbourne. For these first few years, the event was known as the Australasian Championships, in reference to the tournament's proximity to the Asian continent; additionally, since it was difficult at the time to travel to the continent, few players from Europe or the United States attended. The Australian Open as it is known today was first held in 1969, since this was the first year that the tournament allowed professionals to enter; and the great Rod Laver, the most famous Australian male tennis player in history was the first Men's Singles champion. http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/event_guide/history/year_by_year.html

Much drama has emerged in the Australian Open. Though initially it may have seemed that all of the top seeds in the men's draw would make it through unscathed to the quarterfinals, this was by no means the case; top players such as fifth seed Nikolay Davydenko nearly lost in the round of sixteen to Fernando Verdasco, and defending US Open Champion and fourth seed Juan Martin del Potro suffered defeat at the hands of the upstart Croat Marin Cilic. Cilic would go on to defeat American Andy Roddick in a heated five set encounter in the quarterfinals, where he will face Andy Murray of Britain, who defeated second seed and 2009 Australian Open champ Rafael Nadal in the quarters. On the other side, the inspirational play of Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has him riding a wave of support and crushing strokes to take him all the way to the semifinals, after downing Nicolas Almagro in five sets, and then 2008 Australian Open champ Novak Djokovic in five sets as well. Roger Federer has made it to the semi-finals somehow after playing horribly at times against Davydenko. He faces Tsonga, a player who has never looked better.

The remarkable story for the women has been the incredible play of two Chinese women, Na Li and Zheng Jie, who have each made it to the semi-finals, and face Serena Williams and Justine Henin respectively. Though each faces long odds, their tenacity and fearlessness in the face of superior ranked opponents has been intriguing. Look for Zheng and Li to try and keep up the string of upsets.