2012 Australian Open
Date	16–29 January 2012
Edition	100th
Category	Grand Slam (ITF)
Surface	Hardcourt (Plexicushion)
Location	Melbourne, Australia
Venue	Melbourne Park
Champions
Men's singles
Novak Djokovic
Women's singles
Victoria Azarenka
Men's doubles
Leander Paes / Radek Štěpánek
Women's doubles
Svetlana Kuznetsova / Vera Zvonareva
Mixed doubles
Bethanie Mattek-Sands / Horia Tecău
Wheelchair men's singles
Maikel Scheffers
Wheelchair women's singles
Esther Vergeer
Wheelchair quad singles
Peter Norfolk
Wheelchair men's doubles
Ronald Vink / Robin Ammerlaan
Wheelchair women's doubles
Esther Vergeer / Sharon Walraven
Wheelchair quad doubles
Andrew Lapthorne / Peter Norfolk
Boys' singles
Luke Saville
Girls' singles
Taylor Townsend
Boys' doubles
Liam Broady / Joshua Ward-Hibbert
Girls' doubles
Gabrielle Andrews / Taylor Townsend
← 2011 · Australian Open · 2013 →

The 2012 Australian Open was a tennis tournament that took place in Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, from 16 to 29 January 2012. It was the 100th edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam event of the year. The tournament consisted of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles play. Junior and wheelchair players competed in singles and doubles tournaments.

Novak Djokovic successfully defended his title after he defeated Rafael Nadal in the longest grand slam final in history. The 2012 final passed the 2008 Wimbledon final for the record, finishing after 5 hours and 53 minutes of play. Kim Clijsters was the defending champion for the women's singles, but lost to Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals. Azarenka defeated Maria Sharapova for her first Grand Slam title; and over took Caroline Wozniacki as the number one ranked player on the WTA Tour. In the doubles Leander Paes and Radek Štěpánek won the title. Paes completed a career Grand Slam with the title while Štěpánek won his first Slam. On the women's side an all Russian duo of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva took the title. The mixed event was won by Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecău.

The 2012 Australian Open took place in January 2012 at Melbourne Park. The men's singles was staged for the 100th time. There have been 59 different previous winners and the 100th staging of the event was marked by a special coin and the 2012 Champion received a special medallion. The tournament also marked 50 years since Rod Laver won his first Grand Slam.^[1] For the first time Hawk-Eye ball tracking system was used on the Margaret Court Arena,^[2] while Ken Fletcher was inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame.^[3]

Below is a series of tables for each of the competitions showing the ranking points on offer for each event.

Stage	Men's singles[4]	Men's doubles[4]	Women's singles[5]	Women's doubles[5]
Champion	2000
Runner up	1200		1400
Semifinals	720		900
Quarterfinals	360		500
Round of 16	180		280
Round of 32	90		160
Round of 64	45	0	100	5
Round of 128	10	–	5	–
Qualifier	25		60
Qualifying 3rd round	16		50
Qualifying 2nd round	8		40
Qualifying 1st round	0		2

Stage[6][7]	Boys singles	Boys doubles	Girls singles	Girls doubles
Champion	250	180	250	180
Runner up	180	120	180	120
Semifinals	120	80	120	80
Quarterfinals	80	50	80	50
Round of 16	50	30	50	30
Round of 32	30	–	30	–
Qualifier who loses in first round	25	–	25	–
Qualifying final round	20	–	20	–

Stage[8]	Men's singles	Men's doubles	Women's singles	Women's doubles	Quad singles	Quad doubles
Champion	800
Runner up	500					100
Semifinals/3rd	375	100	375	100	375	–
Quarterfinals/4th	100	–	100	–	100	–

The 2012 Australian Open was the richest Grand Slam tournament in history, with the singles champions pocketing 2.3 million dollars.^[9] All prize money is in Australian dollars (AUD); doubles prize money is distributed per pair.

Novak Djokovic was the defending champion^[10] and won in the final 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7^(5–7), 7–5 against Rafael Nadal entering the season as reigning world number 1 for the first time of his career. It was the longest match in the history of the Australian Open, and in fact, the longest ever singles final in the Open Era in Grand Slam history; clocked at 5 hours and 53 minutes and ending after midnight with Nadal memorable saying after the match "good morning."^[11] It marked the fifth Grand Slam of Djokovic's career and his 3rd Australian Open. It also marked the first time that he had defended a Grand Slam title. After winning the 2012 Australian Open, Djokovic had an opportunity to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four Grand Slams at the same time, after winning the previous two in 2011. Nadal became the first player to lose in the final of three consecutive Grand Slams in the Open Era.^[12]

Championship match result Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal, 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7^(5–7), 7–5

Victoria Azarenka won her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first Belarusian player to win a Grand Slam in singles, by defeating Maria Sharapova in the final. She also became the 21st player to be ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association on 30 January 2012 as a result of this win. It was Azarenka's 2nd title of the year and 10th of her career.

Championship match result Victoria Azarenka defeated Maria Sharapova, 6–3, 6–0

Leander Paes / Radek Štěpánek defeated Bob Bryan / Mike Bryan, 7–6^(7–1), 6–2

Svetlana Kuznetsova / Vera Zvonareva defeated Sara Errani / Roberta Vinci, 5–7, 6–4, 6–3

Bethanie Mattek-Sands / Horia Tecău defeated Elena Vesnina / Leander Paes, 6–3, 5–7, [10–3]

Luke Saville defeated Filip Peliwo, 6–3, 5–7, 6–4

Taylor Townsend defeated Yulia Putintseva, 6–1, 3–6, 6–3

Liam Broady / Joshua Ward-Hibbert defeated Adam Pavlásek / Filip Veger, 6–3, 6–2

Gabrielle Andrews / Taylor Townsend defeated Irina Khromacheva / Danka Kovinić, 5–7, 7–5, [10–6]

Maikel Scheffers defeated Nicolas Peifer, 3–6, 7–6^(7–2), 6–0

Esther Vergeer defeated Aniek van Koot, 6–0, 6–0

Peter Norfolk defeated David Wagner, 4–6, 6–4, 6–2

Ronald Vink / Robin Ammerlaan defeated Stéphane Houdet / Nicolas Peifer, 6–2, 4–6, 6–1

Esther Vergeer / Sharon Walraven defeated Aniek van Koot / Marjolein Buis, 4–6, 6–2, 6–4

Andrew Lapthorne / Peter Norfolk defeated David Wagner / Noam Gershony, 6–4, 6–2

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The host broadcaster of the event was the Seven Network which ran all day and night coverage on its primary channel and its digital channel 7Two from 11 am until the close of play around midnight Melbourne time. 2012 is the first year Seven has aired live primetime play across the entire country, switching coverage to 7Two for various live news and Today Tonight broadcasts in different time zones of Australia. Associated media partnership Yahoo!7 (co-owned by Seven and Yahoo!) saw more than 100 000 viewers check into live match coverage via the Fango mobile app,^[13] with check-ins peaking during the Hewitt vs. Djokovic match in the Open's fourth round.

The event was also shown in Australia on Fox Sports which broadcast secondary matches live.

Men's singles

Champion		Runner-up
Novak Djokovic [1]		Rafael Nadal [2]
Semifinals out
Andy Murray [4]		Roger Federer [3]
Quarterfinals out
David Ferrer [5]	Kei Nishikori [24]	Juan Martín del Potro [11]	Tomáš Berdych [7]
4th round out
Lleyton Hewitt (WC)	Richard Gasquet [17]	Mikhail Kukushkin	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga [6]
Philipp Kohlschreiber	Bernard Tomic	Nicolás Almagro [10]	Feliciano López [18]
3rd round out
Nicolas Mahut	Milos Raonic [23]	Janko Tipsarević [9]	Juan Ignacio Chela [27]
Michaël Llodra	Gaël Monfils [14]	Julien Benneteau	Fred Gil
Alejandro Falla	Lu Yen-hsun	Alexandr Dolgopolov [13]	Ivo Karlović
Kevin Anderson [30]	Stanislas Wawrinka [21]	John Isner [16]	Lukáš Lacko (Q)
2nd round out
Santiago Giraldo	Tatsuma Ito (WC)	Philipp Petzschner	Andy Roddick [15]
James Duckworth (WC)	Andrey Golubev (Q)	Pablo Andújar	Ryan Sweeting
Édouard Roger-Vasselin	Alex Bogomolov Jr. [32]	Viktor Troicki [19]	Thomaz Bellucci
Gilles Simon [12]	Matthew Ebden	Marcel Granollers [26]	Ricardo Mello
Mardy Fish [8]	Pere Riba	Florent Serra (Q)	Blaž Kavčič
Tobias Kamke	Sam Querrey	Carlos Berlocq	Andreas Beck
Olivier Rochus	Sergiy Stakhovsky	Marcos Baghdatis	Grigor Dimitrov
David Nalbandian	Flavio Cipolla	Donald Young	Tommy Haas (PR)
1st round out
Paolo Lorenzi	Matteo Viola (Q)	Potito Starace	Radek Štěpánek [29]
Filippo Volandri	Lukáš Rosol	Cedrik-Marcel Stebe	Robin Haase
Dmitry Tursunov	Jürgen Zopp (Q)	Mikhail Youzhny	Andreas Seppi
Michael Russell	Igor Kunitsyn	Matthias Bachinger	Rui Machado
Ryan Harrison	Xavier Malisse	Ernests Gulbis	Daniel Gimeno Traver
Juan Carlos Ferrero	Guillermo García López	Dudi Sela	Marinko Matosevic (WC)
Danai Udomchoke (Q)	Karol Beck	João Souza	Stéphane Robert
Jesse Levine (WC)	Ivan Dodig	Roberto Bautista Agut (Q)	Denis Istomin
Gilles Müller	Fabio Fognini	Albert Montañés	Juan Mónaco [25]
Rik de Voest (LL)	Steve Darcis	James Ward (Q)	Adrian Mannarino
Greg Jones (WC)	Victor Hănescu	Kenny de Schepper (WC)	Fernando Verdasco [22]
Jürgen Melzer [31]	Jesse Huta Galung (Q)	Éric Prodon	Alexander Kudryavtsev (Q)
Albert Ramos Viñolas	Björn Phau (Q)	Illya Marchenko (Q)	Frederik Nielsen (Q)
Benoît Paire	Benjamin Becker (PR)	Jérémy Chardy	Łukasz Kubot
Benjamin Mitchell (WC)	Jarkko Nieminen	Nikolay Davydenko	Leonardo Mayer
Ivan Ljubičić [28]	Peter Gojowczyk (Q)	Denis Kudla (Q)	Alex Kuznetsov (Q)

Women's singles

Champion		Runner-up
Victoria Azarenka [3]		Maria Sharapova [4]
Semifinals out
Kim Clijsters [11]		Petra Kvitová [2]
Quarterfinals out
Caroline Wozniacki [1]	Agnieszka Radwańska [8]	Ekaterina Makarova	Sara Errani
4th round out
Jelena Janković [13]	Li Na [5]	Iveta Benešová	Julia Görges [22]
Serena Williams [12]	Sabine Lisicki [14]	Zheng Jie	Ana Ivanovic [21]
3rd round out
Monica Niculescu [31]	Christina McHale	Daniela Hantuchová [20]	Anabel Medina Garrigues [26]
Mona Barthel	Nina Bratchikova (Q)	Romina Oprandi	Galina Voskoboeva
Vera Zvonareva [7]	Gréta Arn	Svetlana Kuznetsova [18]	Angelique Kerber [30]
Sorana Cîrstea	Marion Bartoli [9]	Vania King	Maria Kirilenko [27]
2nd round out
Anna Tatishvili	Pauline Parmentier	Marina Erakovic	Chang Kai-chen (Q)
Stéphanie Foretz Gacon	Lesia Tsurenko	Olga Govortsova	Olivia Rogowska (WC)
Casey Dellacqua (WC)	Petra Cetkovská [32]	Alberta Brianti	Peng Shuai [16]
Francesca Schiavone [10]	Eleni Daniilidou	Tsvetana Pironkova	Paula Ormaechea (Q)
Lucie Hradecká	Kaia Kanepi [25]	Dominika Cibulková [17]	Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová
Shahar Pe'er	Sloane Stephens	Stéphanie Dubois	Jamie Hampton (Q)
Urszula Radwańska	Nadia Petrova [29]	Roberta Vinci [23]	Jelena Dokić
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [15]	Michaëlla Krajicek	Aleksandra Wozniak	Carla Suárez Navarro
1st round out
Anastasia Rodionova	Ashleigh Barty (WC)	Alla Kudryavtseva	Alizé Cornet
Lucie Šafářová [24]	Irena Pavlovic (Q)	Petra Martić	Laura Robson (Q)
Maria João Köhler (Q)	Elena Baltacha	Arantxa Rus	Varvara Lepchenko (Q)
Eva Birnerová	Patricia Mayr-Achleitner	Sofia Arvidsson	Ksenia Pervak
Heather Watson	Bojana Jovanovski	Anne Keothavong	Ayumi Morita
Flavia Pennetta [19]	Irina Falconi	Mathilde Johansson	Aravane Rezaï (WC)
Laura Pous Tió	Anastasiya Yakimova	Kimiko Date-Krumm	Polona Hercog
Yanina Wickmayer [28]	Sania Mirza	Simona Halep	Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Alexandra Dulgheru	Evgeniya Rodina	Tamarine Tanasugarn	Johanna Larsson
Magdaléna Rybáriková	Rebecca Marino	Iryna Brémond	Tamira Paszek
Stefanie Vögele (Q)	Isabella Holland (WC)	Sílvia Soler-Espinosa	Chanelle Scheepers
Bojana Bobusic (WC)	Elena Vesnina	Mandy Minella	Gisela Dulko
Samantha Stosur [6]	Alison Riske (Q)	Valeria Savinykh (Q)	Andrea Hlaváčková
Alexandra Cadanțu	Madison Keys (WC)	Anna Chakvetadze (PR)	Virginie Razzano
Klára Zakopalová	Kateryna Bondarenko	Kristina Barrois	Lourdes Domínguez Lino
Jarmila Gajdošová	Zhang Shuai (WC)	Irina-Camelia Begu	Vera Dushevina

Seeds and Rankings are as of 9 January 2012 and Points are as of 16 January 2012.^[14]

Sd	Rk[15]	Player[16]	Points[15]	Points defending	Points won	New points	Status
1	1	Novak Djokovic	13,630	2,000	2,000	13,630	Champion, won in the final against Rafael Nadal [2]
2	2	Rafael Nadal	9,595	360	1,200	10,435	Runner-up, Final lost to Novak Djokovic [1]
3	3	Roger Federer	8,010	720	720	8,010	Semifinals lost to Rafael Nadal [2]
4	4	Andy Murray	7,380	1,200	720	6,900	Semifinals lost to Novak Djokovic [1]
5	5	David Ferrer	4,925	720	360	4,565	Quarterfinals lost to Novak Djokovic [1]
6	6	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	4,335	90	180	4,425	Fourth round lost to Kei Nishikori [24]
7	7	Tomáš Berdych	3,700	360	360	3,700	Quarterfinals lost to Rafael Nadal [2]
8	8	Mardy Fish	2,965	45	45	2,965	Second round lost to Alejandro Falla
9	9	Janko Tipsarević	2,655	45	90	2,700	Third round lost to Richard Gasquet [17]
10	10	Nicolás Almagro	2,380	180	180	2,380	Fourth round lost to Tomáš Berdych [7]
11	11	Juan Martín del Potro	2,315	45	360	2,630	Quarterfinals lost to Roger Federer [3]
12	12	Gilles Simon	2,005	45	45	2,005	Second round lost to Julien Benneteau
13	14	Alexandr Dolgopolov	2,030	360	90	1,760	Third round lost to Bernard Tomic
14	15	Gaël Monfils	1,970	90	90	1,970	Third round lost to Mikhail Kukushkin
15	16	Andy Roddick	1,880	180	45	1,745	Second round retired against Lleyton Hewitt [WC]
16	17	John Isner	1,800	90	90	1,800	Third round lost to Feliciano López [18]
17	18	Richard Gasquet	1,765	90	180	1,855	Fourth round lost to David Ferrer [5]
18	19	Feliciano López	1,755	45	180	1,890	Fourth round lost to Rafael Nadal [2]
19	21	Viktor Troicki	1,595	90	45	1,550	Second round lost to Mikhail Kukushkin
20	22	Florian Mayer	1,630	45	0	1,585	withdrew due to hip strain[17]
21	23	Stan Wawrinka	1,615	360	90	1,345	Third round lost to Nicolás Almagro [10]
22	24	Fernando Verdasco	1,550	180	10	1,380	First round lost to Bernard Tomic
23	25	Milos Raonic	1,460	205	90	1,345	Third round lost to Lleyton Hewitt [WC]
24	26	Kei Nishikori	1,410	90	360	1,680	Quarterfinals lost to Andy Murray [4]
25	27	Juan Mónaco	1,335	45	10	1,300	First round lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber
26	28	Marcel Granollers	1,315	10	45	1,350	Second round lost to Frederico Gil
27	29	Juan Ignacio Chela	1,270	10	90	1,350	Third round lost to David Ferrer [5]
28	30	Ivan Ljubičić	1,270	90	10	1,190	First round lost to Lukáš Lacko [Q]
29	31	Radek Štěpánek	1,230	45	10	1,195	First round lost to Nicolas Mahut
30	32	Kevin Anderson	1,190	10	90	1,270	Third round lost to Tomáš Berdych [7]
31	33	Jürgen Melzer	1,170	180	10	1,000	First round lost to Ivo Karlović
32	34	Alex Bogomolov Jr.	1,135	45	45	1,135	Second round lost to Michaël Llodra

Rank	Player	Points	Points defending	New points	Withdrew due to
13	Robin Söderling	2,120	180	1,940	mononucleosis[18]
20	Marin Čilić	1,665	180	1,485	patella tendon injury[19]

Sd	Rk[15]	Player[16]	Points[15]	Points defending	Points won	New points	Status
1	1	Caroline Wozniacki	7,485	900	500	7,085	Quarterfinals lost to Kim Clijsters [11]
2	2	Petra Kvitová	7,290	500	900	7,690	Semifinals lost to Maria Sharapova [4]
3	3	Victoria Azarenka	6,865	280	2,000	8,585	Champion, won in the final against Maria Sharapova [4]
4	4	Maria Sharapova	6,440	280	1,400	7,560	Runner-up, Final lost to Victoria Azarenka [3]
5	5	Li Na	5,570	1,400	280	4,450	Fourth round lost to Kim Clijsters [11]
6	6	Samantha Stosur	5,585	160	5	5,430	First round lost to Sorana Cîrstea
7	7	Vera Zvonareva	5,435	900	160	4,695	Third round lost to Ekaterina Makarova
8	8	Agnieszka Radwańska	5,330	500	500	5,330	Quarterfinals lost to Victoria Azarenka [3]
9	9	Marion Bartoli	4,710	100	160	4,770	Third round lost to Zheng Jie
10	11	Francesca Schiavone	4,040	500	100	3,640	Second round lost to Romina Oprandi
11	12	Kim Clijsters	3,041	2,000	900	1,941	Semifinals lost to Victoria Azarenka [3]
12	13	Serena Williams	3,300	0	280	3,580	Fourth round lost to Ekaterina Makarova
13	14	Jelena Janković	3,115	100	280	3,295	Fourth round lost to Caroline Wozniacki [1]
14	15	Sabine Lisicki	2,903	(40)	280	3,143	Fourth round lost to Maria Sharapova [4]
15	16	Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova	2,795	160	100	2,735	Second round lost to Vania King
16	17	Peng Shuai	2,760	280	100	2,580	Second round lost to Iveta Benešová
17	18	Dominika Cibulková	2,695	160	100	2,635	Second round lost to Gréta Arn
18	19	Svetlana Kuznetsova	2,646	280	160	2,526	Third round lost to Sabine Lisicki [14]
19	20	Flavia Pennetta	2,570	280	5	2,295	First round lost to Nina Bratchikova [Q]
20	21	Daniela Hantuchová	2,295	5	160	2,450	Third round lost to Kim Clijsters [11]
21	22	Ana Ivanovic	2,260	5	280	2,535	Fourth round lost to Petra Kvitová [2]
22	23	Julia Görges	2,225	160	280	2,345	Fourth round lost to Agnieszka Radwańska [8]
23	24	Roberta Vinci	2,115	5	100	2,210	Second round lost to Zheng Jie
24	25	Lucie Šafářová	2,120	160	5	1,965	First round lost to Christina McHale
25	26	Kaia Kanepi	2,049	100	100	2,049	Second round lost to Ekaterina Makarova
26	27	Anabel Medina Garrigues	1,950	5	160	2,105	Third round retired against Li Na [5]
27	28	Maria Kirilenko	1,930	100	160	1,990	Third round retired against Petra Kvitová [2]
28	29	Yanina Wickmayer	2,050	100	5	1,955	First round lost to Galina Voskoboeva
29	30	Nadia Petrova	1,765	160	100	1,705	Second round lost to Sara Errani
30	31	Angelique Kerber	1,810	5	160	1,965	Third round lost to Maria Sharapova [4]
31	32	Monica Niculescu	1,725	160	160	1,725	Third round lost to Caroline Wozniacki [1]
32	33	Petra Cetkovská	1,666	(18)	100	1,748	Second round lost to Mona Barthel

Rank	Player	Points	Points defending	New points	Withdrew due to
10	Andrea Petkovic	4,500	500	4,000	stress fracture[20]

• Ashleigh Barty / Benjamin Mitchell
• Kimiko Date-Krumm / Kei Nishikori
• Casey Dellacqua / Matthew Ebden
• Jelena Dokić / Paul Hanley
• Jarmila Gajdošová / Bruno Soares
• Jelena Janković / Bernard Tomic
• Olivia Rogowska / Marinko Matosevic

The following players were accepted directly into the main tournament, but withdrew with injuries.

Below is a list of the sixteen seeds for the boys and girls singles and the eight qualifiers for each event.

The field consisted of top seven ranked players in the men's and women's singles, the three top three ranked players in the quad singles category and one wildcard was chosen for each draw.^[21]

• Australian Open official website

Preceded by 2011 US Open

Grand Slams

Succeeded by 2012 French Open