Meta: The Grand Slams are the best tennis tournaments by far. Can one of them be described as the best? We took a closer look here.
The four Grand Slam Tournaments of tennis are the best of the best. Though there are many other smaller tournaments that take place throughout the year, these are considered to be the most prestigious. However, which one is the best of these four? Let’s take a closer look at each of them to see if this can be determined.
The Australian Open
The Australian Open is the first to take place each year, with the players hitting the courts in mid-January. Though it was originally played on grass, it has been played on hard courts since 1988. It is also the most highly attended of the Grand Slams, with over 800,000 people heading here to watch a match in 2020. It was the first Grand Slam to also make provisions for indoor play, with the three main courts at Melbourne Park all being fitted with retractable roofs to be used in the event of wet weather.
The French Open
The French Open is the only Grand Slam now played on clay. It takes place towards the end of May every year, and is considered to be the conclusion to the many clay tournaments that have taken place in the weeks prior. Clay is not the easiest of materials to play tennis on. For this reason, the French Open is considered to be the most physically demanding of the four Grand Slams. The fact that some people have managed to win this multiple times, and even are considered to be good players on clay, is a testament to their strength and skill as tennis players.
Wimbledon
If you had to pick the Grand Slam that was the most prestigious, the only answer you could choose would be Wimbledon. This is the oldest of the Grand Slams and always attracts an elite crowd to watch the matches play out. It is also the only Grand Slam tournament that is still played on grass – making it a very different game compared to the others. The champion here is always hotly anticipated, and checking out the odds for tennis betting at William Hill could help to give you some upfront ideas about who we might see lifting the trophy. Wimbledon is definitely one event on the tennis calendar that everyone should tune in for, even if they have no intentions of ever heading to a match themselves.
The US Open
Finally, we have the US Open. This is played from the last Monday in August, and has been going since 1991. Like the Australian Open, it is played on hard courts. However, it has used grass and clay ones in previous years. The US Open is unique in that it uses specific tiebreaker rules that differ from the other Grand Slams. This can mean that a tiebreaker round is used to decide how the other sets play out. This can make the US Open very hard to predict in terms of winners, and it is one reason why it is so thrilling to watch play out.
Which is the Best?
Each of the Grand Slams is so different that it would be nearly impossible to designate one as simply “the best”. The Australian Open is the most popular, the French the most difficult, the US the hardest to call, and Wimbledon the most prestigious. Each one should be celebrated for its own weird and wonderful ways. Now is the perfect time to learn more about the different Grand Slams – one might even emerge as your favourite over the others, thus making it the best in your eyes!
