The men’s Australian Open final has absolutely blown the TV ratings out of the park this year, with more than 6.3 million viewers tuning in to Nine to watch 38-year-old Serb, Novak Djokovic, go toe-to-toe with the much younger Spanish top seed, Carlos Alcaraz. The women’s decider reached 3.82 million on Saturday night.
The match, which lasted just over three hours drew in an extra two million fans compared to last years final (4.166 million). To add to it’s enormous year the 2026 average audience of 3.45 million was only 600 thousand short of the 2025 final’s reach.
Djokovic was playing to win his 25th Grand Slam victory, which would have made him the first ever to do so, and also the oldest ever player to win a major tournament. For the 22-year-old Alcaraz, he was fighting to be the youngest player in tennis history to win all four major grand slams, a feat that he achieved in a four set thriller.
No matter what fans were about to witness history.
The night that hauled in a total TV national average audience of 3,448,000 viewers belonged to Alcaraz as he belted his way to a three sets to one victory over his much older and experienced opponent. The first set belonged to Djokovic who won quite easily 6-2. He demonstrated his formidably accurate forehand, making next to none unforced errors.
It wasn’t until Alcaraz made an adjustment of playing Djokovic’s serves further back on the court that the 38-year-old started making errors. This gave Alcaraz an opportunity to pounce, which ultimately saw him win the next three sets and his first ever Australian Open.
The broadcaster also smashed the BVOD ratings with 905,000 tennis fans streaming the final on 9now.
Over on Seven the most popular entertainment program of the night was Border Security, locking up a reach total TV national reach of 1,313,000 and an average of 702,000. For 10, it’s most watched entertainment program was I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here, which continued it’s strong run.
In the women’s decider Elena Rybakina defeated defending champion Aryna Sabalenka in three sets. The final posted an average TV audience of 2,135,000 with half a million watching it on 9Now.
The men’s semi finals shared a similar result to grand finals, absolutely dominating the ratings on the Friday night.
