Melbourne Park

Melbourne Park is a sports venue in the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Since 1988 Australia's bicentenary, Melbourne Park has been home of the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament played annually in January. The park has multiple venues where the Australian Open matches take place. Rod Laver Arena is the largest venue with a capacity of 15,000, while John Cain Arena seats 10,500 and Margaret Court Arena 7,500. The three venues feature retr

Melbourne Park is owned by Melbourne & Olympic Parks, which also runs the adjacent Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. The Yarra Park section of the Sports and Entertainment Precinct is run separately.

The park was originally known as Flinders Park until 1996, when then-Premier, Jeff Kennett decided to change the name to Melbourne Park, mainly to advertise the name "Melbourne" to a wide international audience during events held there. The decision was met with strong opposition, and was compared by some to renaming Stade Roland Garros (home to the French Open in Paris) "Paris Park". However, over the years, the name has become accepted by Melburnians.Flinders park was developed in 1988 beside the Jolimont Yard as a new precinct to host the Australian Open. The previous venue, Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, had become too small for the burgeoning tournament. Flinders Park's construction was completed in 1988 at a cost of at least $94 million. The unveiling of the new precinct was met with incredibly positive reviews by players and spectators, with some labelling the facilities and amenities the best of the four Grand Slams. Expansion of the precinct next occurred in 1996, when a further $23 million was invested to create two fully seated and larger show courts and eight new ‘Ace’ courts, as well as a large grassy space, now known as ‘Garden Square’.The organisation responsible for managing the precinct is the Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust, which was established in October 1995 in accordance with the provisions of the amended Melbourne & Olympic Parks Act 1985. In April 2018, Tennis Australia revealed it harboured ambitions to take over management rights of the entire precinct, with the hope of maximising its use for other sporting and cultural events outside of the Australian Open.

While it is best known for being a tennis venue, Melbourne Park also plays host to a number of other sports and musical events throughout the year. The venue tends to be used by more popular international performers, as it is the largest the city has to offer, excluding the Docklands Stadium in the Docklands and the nearby Melbourne Cricket Ground. Aside from the tennis tournament, which typically attracts crowds in excess of 800,000, the park has facilities that allows other sports to be played regularly at Melbourne Park's arenas, such as netball (Super Netball teams, Melbourne Vixens and Collingwood Magpies play home matches at John Cain Arena and Margaret Court Arena) and basketball (National Basketball League team Melbourne United play home matches at John Cain Arena). In the past Melbourne Park has hosted ice skating, track cycling, international swimming and motorsport events. The Rod Laver Arena and Margaret Court Arena venues are most commonly used for music concerts. All three stadium courts/arenas are multi-purpose, being used for a variety of events, including the Australian Open commitments in January.

Melbourne Park is the only Grand Slam tennis venue to have three courts installed with a retractable roof, allowing play to continue in the event of rain or extreme heat. The courts were Plexicushion from 2008 to 2019.

The Melbourne Park Redevelopment was the process by which the precinct underwent three significant stages of redevelopment between 2010 and 2022. The Stage 1 redevelopment included the construction of a new Eastern Plaza to host an elite tennis training facility and a new bridge linking Melbourne Park to the nearby AAMI Park stadium and Olympic Park Oval, as well as an upgrade to Margaret Court Arena. The Eastern Plaza Tennis Training Facility, which was later re-named the National Tennis Centre, features eight indoor and 13 outdoor courts, eight of which are European-style clay courts. It was unveiled in January 2013. Margaret Court Arena had its seating capacity expanded to 7,500 and a retractable roof installed, and was opened ahead of the 2015 Australian Open. The cost of the Stage 1 redevelopment was $366 million.Stage 2 of the redevelopment began in June 2015, when it was announced that Rod Laver Arena would undergo a redevelopment of its exterior facade and interior features, such as bars and other player and spectator facilities. The broader second stage upgrade included a new footbridge linking Melbourne Park and Birrarung Marr and an Administration and Media Building, to house Tennis Australia and Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust headquarters. The new footbridge, named Tanderrum Bridge, was unveiled in December 2016 and the Administration and Media Building was completed two months earlier. The Rod Laver Arena refurbishment included a new four-level training, leisure and multi-dining facility for athletes at the Australian Open and the general public at other times; this was completed in December 2018. Rod Laver Arena's retractable roof was also upgraded to allow for it to be closed for inclement weather in five minutes, dropping from the 30 minutes it took to close beforehand. The Stage 2 redevelopment cost $338 million and was fully completed in September 2019.The final phase of redevelopment (Stage 3) was announced in April 2017 by the Victorian Government; a further $271.3 million was invested to complete upgrades for Melbourne Park. Construction of Stage 3 began in April 2019. The signature elements of this phase of redevelopment was the construction of a new 5,000-seat sunken show court arena located between Rod Laver and John Cain arenas, and the construction of a double-storey function and media centre named Centrepiece, on the site of the old function centre. The Centrepiece building features a Grand Hall capable of seating up to 1400 people at a banquet, a press conference-style auditorium for up to 250 people and several broadcast studios capable of being converted into meeting rooms, boardrooms or cocktail events. Other upgrades to the park as part of this stage was the installation of a central logistics hub which included a kitchen and loading dock, additional grassed public spaces, and two match tennis courts with seating for several hundred spectators. Construction of the Centrepiece facility was completed in August 2021. Overall, a total of $972 million was spent on the multi-year redevelopment of the Melbourne Park precinct. Completion of all works at the precinct was achieved in December 2021, shortly prior to the 2022 Australian Open in January.

Melbourne Park is adjacent to the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Yarra Park, and there are several pedestrian bridges linking the two across the separating railway lines. The park is five minutes walk from Richmond and Jolimont railway stations, and five minutes from the city centre by tram (route 70) or ten minutes on foot.