Australian Open
The Australian Open is an annual tennis tournament and the first Grand Slam tournament of the calendar year. It is a hard court tournament. It takes place in January in Melbourne, Australia, during Australian summer, and therefore has an extreme heat policy, wherein play is stopped when the temperature is deemed to have reached dangerous levels.
The Australian Open has been contested since 1905. Originally a grass court tournament, it switched to a hard surface in 1988.
The current (as of 2011) champions are: Novak Djokovic (men's singles), Kim Clijsters (women's singles), Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta (ladies' doubles), Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan (men's doubles) and Katarina Srebotnik and Daniel Nestor (mixed doubles). Serena Williams was not able to defend her title in 2011 due to a foot injury.
The 2012 tournament is scheduled to begin on 16 January 2012.