Breaking: One Point Slam Returns Ahead of Australian Open
Four days before the Australian Open begins, a 48-player field will compete in the One Point Slam, a high-stakes, single-point knockout format designed to spark renewed interest in tennis. The lineup includes 24 top professionals, eight state amateur winners, eight Melbourne qualifiers, and eight wildcards, among them celebrities and invited personalities.
Play starts with a playful twist — a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who serves — and every match is settled by a single point in a sudden-death style bracket until one champion remains.
The One Point Slam debuted in 2025, drawing attention with a prize pool of A$60,000 and featuring Russia’s Andrey Rublev as the sole top-10 player in the field. This year’s edition echoes that format, continuing the experiment as tennis seeks fresh ways to engage fans.
Organizers frame the event as part of a broader push to broaden tennis’s appeal, following similar moves by the US Open, which introduced a standalone mixed doubles championship ahead of its main draw last year.
Why this matters for fans and the sport
By condensing matches into single-point confrontations, the format emphasizes nerves, reflexes, and crowd energy, offering rapid, shareable moments ideal for digital platforms and live audiences alike. It also creates potential storylines around underdog stories and wildcard entrants, keeping fans guessing until the final point.
| Key Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Event | One Point Slam |
| Date context | Held four days before the Australian Open |
| Total participants | 48 players |
| Player breakdown | 24 top professionals, 8 state amateur winners, 8 Melbourne qualifiers, 8 wildcards |
| Format | Single-point matches in a knockout bracket |
| Inaugural prize (2025) | A$60,000 |
| Notable context | 2025 edition featured Rublev as the only top-10 player |
as the sport experiments with fresh formats to widen its audience, the One Point Slam sits alongside other innovations aimed at making tennis more watchable, social, and accessible—especially in the lead-up to one of tennis’s biggest annual events.
Readers, will you tune in to this pre-Australian Open spectacle, and could single-point formats become a regular feature beyond special events?
Your thoughts and reactions are welcome—share them below and join the discussion as the season kicks off.
