Baku, February 2, AZERTAC The 2023 Australian Open set a new attendance record for the first grand slam tournament of the year, with 839,192 fans through the gates at Melbourne Park, according to AuStadiums.The two-week attendance figure is 27,018 higher than the previous record of 812,174 set in the last tournament prior to Covid – 2020.The figures make the Australian Open the biggest of the four grand slams. 515,164 fans attended Wimbledon last year, 613,000 went to the French Open and 776,000 were at the US Open.For the first time, spectators had to pay to attend qualifying matches in the week prior to the tournament, while there were also two exhibition events.The two exhibitions sold-out the 14,850-capacity Rod Laver Arena, which were included in the attendance figure of 63,120 for the qualifying week prior to the tournament, which also featured Perfect Practice matches and Kids Tennis Day.In all, across three weeks (Monday 9 to Sunday 29 January), 902,312 fans attended Melbourne Park.Records were broken for 11 individual sessions and seven day/night totals. The middle Saturday was the highest attended day/night in the history of the Australian Open, with 94,854 fans in attendance at Melbourne Park – the previous record was 93,709 set in 2020.The final Sunday was attended by 45,832 spectators, the majority of which were outside Rod Laver Arena watching the men’s final on big screens around Melbourne Park.Tennis Australia is seeking to break the one million mark for next year’s Australian Open.“This year was the start of it,” tournament director Craig Tiley said. “It’s going to be a three-week extravaganza, so it’s three weeks of tennis, three weeks of music, three weeks of other events, three weeks of food, three weeks of kids’ ballpark.”299,740 people attended the lead-in events prior to the Australian Open – including the United Cup in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane, the Adelaide International, Hobart International and Canberra International, with a total of more than 1.2 million spectators attending the Australian summer of tennis.