Australian Open’s ‘One Point Slam’ thrills fans - and one-ups the other Grand Slams

An amateur tennis player beating a four-time Grand Slam champion. Men competing against women — on a normal court. Professional players taking on TV hosts, comedians and a former jockey. A single point deciding the winner of $1 million AUD ($668,300 USD), in front of a packed stadium and a captive online audience.

Wednesday night in Melbourne, Jordan Smith, an amateur player from the Castle Hill tennis academy in Sydney, won the second edition of the Australian Open’s ‘One Point Slam,’ by beating Joanna Garland, the women’s world No. 117 who had taken out men’s world No. 3 Alexander Zverev earlier on. This was not some tennis fever dream, but a welcome reminder of the sport’s ability to create chaos, fun and mess — when it chooses to embrace those things, as it so often does not.

Last year’s ‘One Point Slam’ had just $40,093 USD on the line and just one professional player in Andrey Rublev, but this year the stars came out. Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Iga Świątek, Coco Gauff and so many more joined amateurs who had won regional state championships across Australia, as well as qualifiers from earlier this week and wild cards. In total, 48 players participated.

Each matchup played rock, paper, scissors to determine who would serve, with pro players only getting one delivery. World No. 2 Sinner, world No. 3 Gauff and Frances Tiafoe of the U.S. were among the top players to fall at the first and most literal hurdle of getting their serve in the box.

Sinner did it against eventual winner Smith to bow out. Petar Jovic, one of the amateur qualifiers, nearly got past 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev with a ‘tweener. Garland beat Zverev with a backhand winner down the line. Players chatted and laughed and expressed disbelief with and at each other, embracing the chaos of a single point which is so often a heavy weight in their competitive lives. World No. 9 Taylor Fritz expressed his annoyance at his decision to not play on X.

Garland, the 25-year-old who represents Chinese Taipei but was born in the UK, was one of the stars of the night. As well as Zverev, she took out 2022 Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios and former Wimbledon semifinalist Donna Vekić. She delighted the crowd with how genuinely stunned she was to keep winning, having only qualified for the event that day after a loss in the regular Australian Open qualifiers Monday.

Smith meanwhile had beaten world No. 71 Pedro Martinez to reach the final, and was similarly disbelieving. He was even more so when Garland missed a backhand plus-one shot to secure him the title and the cash prize, which stood on the side of the court in a box throughout the event. Smith said he would invest the money or buy a property with his girlfriend, while his tennis club received a $50,000 AUD ($33,402) windfall as part of the prize.

On the other side of the world, the other three Grand Slams will be watching in envy, as the first of the year makes further strides to becoming a genuine three-week event, instead of two. The ‘One Point Slam’ followed three days of record qualifying attendances at the Australian Open, whose revenue for January to September 2025 was $465.8 million USD, a 17-percent increase on the same period in 2024.

The most comparable event is the U.S. Open’s mixed doubles, which it moved to the week before the singles main draws last year. The event was ultimately a big commercial success but took a lot of criticism for depriving doubles specialists of the chance to compete, save for 2024 champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori. They ended up winning the 2025 edition, too. A record 78,000 fans visited the grounds during the two days the event was on, with Arthur Ashe Stadium sold out on both days, and more than 20,000 fans watching the matches for free on Louis Armstrong Stadium.

The signature of the French Open’s opening week has been qualifying matches played on the second court, Court Suzanne-Lenglen, leading to big crowds and excellent atmospheres.

The outlier is Wimbledon, which is desperate to keep pace with the other Slams and add a third week. At present, it is the only major that has qualifying at a different venue — Roehampton, a few miles away. It is locked in a legal battle with local residents, who are seeking to block its plans to build 39 new courts, including an 8,000-seater show court, on the nearby Wimbledon Park golf course.

On Friday Jan. 16, a High Court trial will begin, to determine whether the land earmarked for expansion is protected by a statutory trust which Save Wimbledon Park says would prohibit Wimbledon from developing it. The Greater London Authority has already approved planning permission for the tennis expansion.

Wimbledon’s situation is a stark contrast to the picture of constant growth and evolution in Melbourne. And where the U.S. Open’s mixed doubles event was divisive because of the way in which it turned a doubles event into a quasi-exhibition for singles players, the ‘One Point Slam’ has overcome some initial skepticism to become a big hit.

There was much to enjoy on Wednesday. The curiosity of seeing amateurs against pros, and the occasional upset — Félix Auger-Aliassime was another to suffer the same fate as Sinner — and the intrigue of men against women, with Iga Świątek hitting a huge forehand to defeat the world No. 22 Flavio Cobolli. Świątek gave Frances Tiafoe some lighthearted trash talk after his fault ended their point prematurely, while Naomi Osaka reveled in beating Australian comedian, presenter and children’s author Andy Lee.

Many of the players seemed genuinely nervous, and Arthur Rindeknech appeared to be pretty annoyed at losing to Amanda Anisimova when he missed a serve. “Go big or go home,” he said. “I go home.”

After Wednesday’s success, the event will likely grow even bigger next year, and the other majors will be taking notes. All of them constantly compete to try and outdo the other in terms of size, revenues and eyeballs, and the ‘One Point Slam’ is another feather in the cap for the major that has long been viewed as the most innovative.

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