Hopman Cup | Perth 2015

Serena Williams, the 18-time singles Grand slam champion believes she can play level tennis against top ranked players in 2015 season, where she will begin season at the Hopman Cup tournament 2015 in January. 

Serena Williams, who will skip from the WTA Brisbane International, she will join along with Wimbledon doubles champion Jack Sock in the United States team to compete in a star-studded Hopman Cup ahead of the Australian Open 2015.

Serena Williams is considered as hot favorite to clinch the 2015 Australian Open, as she finishes this season with aggressive mode by winning WTA Championship Finals in Singapore. 

Currently, Serena is playing in the inaugural International Tennis Premier League and she wants to well prepare for the upcoming season begins next month. Serena hopes it will be the best preparation for the season’s opening Grand slam tournament Australian Open.

Defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is likely to pair-up with Alize Cornet in a French team playing in Group B with Australia, Great Britain and Poland. Great Britain top ranked Andy Murray will play for Britain alongside Heather Watson. 

Canadian beauty Eugenie Bouchard, Australian star Nick Kyrgios and world No.6 Agnieszka Radwanska also confirmed to play in the tournament begins from January 4 to 10 on outdoor hard courts.


Date: 4–10 January 2015 

Venue: Perth Arena (indoor) 

Surface: Plexicushion 

Capacity: 12,489 (when configured for tennis. Perth Arena has a maximum capacity of 15,500)

View the Official Hopman Cup Website

Summer Sporting Extravaganza to Boost Australian Economy

In Australia, summer is all about sport. This season the addition of two major international events to the calendar is a big bonus, not just for sports lovers but for the economy as well.

Australians who don't enjoy sport turn off the television and head for the beach at this time of year.

For everyone else, there's a smorgasbord of Test and one-day cricket, PGA golf, an internationally famous yacht race, a grand slam tennis event, cycling and Formula One races.

The country is set to enjoy an unprecedented quantity of world sport worth an estimated A$320m ($267m; £172m) to the economy thanks to the addition of two major events.

The Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup - being held across five cities in January - and the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup, which will be played in Australia and New Zealand in February and March, eclipse other events in size and dollar value.

The Asian Cup is the biggest sporting event in Asia and the cricket World Cup is the third biggest sporting event in the world after the summer Olympics and the FIFA World Cup.

Australia's summer of sport

• December 9 - January 10: Four cricket Test matches, Australia v India.
• December 11-14: Australian PGA golf Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast.
• December 26-30: Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
• January 9 - January 31, 2015: Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup.
• January 16 - February 1: Cricket one-day international tri series, Australia, India and England.
• January 17-25: Tour Down Under cycling classic, Adelaide and South Australia.
• January 19 - February 1: Australian Open grand slam tennis, Melbourne.
• February 14 - March 29: ICC World Cup.
• March 12-15: Australian Grand Prix Formula One, Melbourne.

Every year, between 1 December and 1 April, there are five million tickets on sale for sport and entertainment events across New South Wales, according to state government body Destination NSW. For the same period in 2014-2015, there are eight million tickets on sale.

"That's what happens when you add an Asian Cup and a World Cup to the calendar," says Asian Cup chief executive officer Michael Brown. "There's going to be a lot more people spending a lot more dollars."

Test Cricket

Australia's golden summer begins with the first of four Test cricket matches between Australia and India on 9 December. The fixtures were rescheduled to start later in the month because of the sudden death in late November of 25-year old Australian Test player Phillip Hughes.

Golf

The first Test now clashes with the Australian PGA golf event, while the Sydney to Hobart yacht race - which organisers claim is the largest spectator sporting event in the world - competes with the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

An estimated one million spectators will watch the start of the yacht race - about 300,000 of them from the water and another 700,000 lining Sydney's harbour and coastline, says chief executive officer of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Mark Woolf.

Economic Ipmact

The economic impact, however, is incalculable, says Mr Woolf, because it is a free spectator event.

"The metrics that come out of this race are enormous," he says. "It's not a stadium event. We don't have a captive audience. But there are tentacles everywhere.

"There's the investment of transporting and accommodating 118 boats and crew for the start. The crews bring their friends and families. Then there's provisioning and fuelling and self-catering for spectator picnics.

"Even the NSW town of Eden gets an economic lift. It's the last safe harbour for boats to refuel and restock before crossing Bass Strait. Once they reach Hobart the boats and crews have to get back to Sydney.

"Then there's the impact of those TV pictures of a perfect Sydney harbour beaming into Europe and America in the middle of winter on their Christmas night. It's hard to quantify the publicity and future tourism impact."

Asia Cup Soccer

As the Test cricket ends the Asian Cup kicks off on 9 January, with 16 teams playing 32 matches in Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

According to Mr Brown, PricewaterhouseCoopers has said the event will pump A$225m into the economy. Asian Cup organisers target ticket sales of 500,000, with 50,000 international visitors expected to attend.

Three of Australia's top ten trading partners - China, Japan and South Korea - have qualified, which means hosting the Asia Cup is a unique tourism, trade and investment opportunity for the country and the region, he says.

"The Asian Cup is Asia's biggest sporting event and football is the biggest team sport and the most popular sport in Asia," Mr Brown says. "In Asia, football outstrips cricket as a sport."

Tourism Tsunami

But the Asian Cup will also have to compete for spectators and TV audiences with the Tour Down Under cycling classic in South Australia and the Australian Open grand slam tennis tournament in Melbourne.

ICC World Cup Cricket

Then, the biggest sporting event of the summer begins on 14 February. More than one million people are expected to attend 49 one-day matches featuring 14 teams playing in the ICC World Cup at venues in Australia and New Zealand.

ICC World Cup chief executive officer John Harnden says 500,000 tickets have already been sold and tens of thousands of international spectators are expected to attend, creating a tourism tsunami between the two countries.

"There will be a lot of travel between Australia and New Zealand, and then India, the UK and the US are the three primary points of origin (for spectators)," says Mr Harnden.

"It is a great opportunity to showcase ourselves to the world and benefit from that great word of mouth from all those tens of thousands of tourists saying what a great time they had. If the Australian and New Zealand teams do well, that will be an even bigger bonus."

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Tourism Set to Cash In On Big Summer For International Sport

An unprecedented summer of international sport is set to boost Canberra's tourist numbers after a major decline in business stays and spending in the past year.

With seven Asian Cup football games including a quarter final, three cricket World Cup games and an extra one day International in November, Canberra's tourism boss expected locals to be joined by a mass of regional and international visitors for the sporting feast.

Visit Canberra director Ian Hill said it would be the strongest summer of sport the city had enjoyed. 

"Two absolutely world class events, and I certainly know tickets for those cricket World Cup games have been selling really well."

The National Visitor Survey released last month showed visitor nights were down 790,000 in the domestic business sector for the year to June, a drop of 37.5 per cent. Overall domestic nights were down 16.4 per cent and expenditure down 11.4 per cent, or $14 million. 

International visitor nights also fell 12 per cent, or 570,000 nights, in the same period, with expenditure down 6 per cent.

Mr Hill said the tourism authority was working closely with hoteliers and organisations elsewhere to help them package and promote events.  

"One of those [Asian Cup] games is a China [vs] Korea game; China don't play in Sydney and there's a big group of Chinese background people who live in Sydney, so we're working with some of the multicultural media in Sydney," he said. 

The tourism chief said the key to maximising the windfall for Canberra was ensuring visitors saw other attractions  during their stay, and a rejuvenated cultural and hotel scene would help.

"Places like Braddon are important, Lonsdale Street Roasters is an important place, New Acton, and with new hotels like Hotel Hotel, Peppers has just rebranded, we've seen QT do a fit out at Rydges, the Kurrajong is about to reopen after being refitted – a great location for visitors in the Parliamentary Triangle. I think visitors are seeing a new side of Canberra," Mr Hill said. 

Mr Hill said stories on last week's OECD finding that Canberra was the world's best city to live in,  trumpeted in the New York Times and elsewhere, helped spread the word. 

The Australian Hotels Association ACT recently told ABC TV that occupancy rates were at about 65 per cent, down from the same time last year, but investment was strong, with another 500-600 hotel rooms available by mid-next year. 

Australian Open 2014: Victoria Azarenka, Novak Djokovic and Bernard Tomic Draw Their Battle Lines in Melbourne

Intimidation tactics: Victoria Azarenka starts the Australian Open as a second seed behind Serena Williams but defiantly says she 'doesn't care'

Victoria Azarenka covets third Australian Open title, Novak Djokovic bets Boris Becker gamble will pay off and underdog Bernard Tomic dares to dream of Rafael Nadal's fall at Sydney International

Open winner not scared of Serena

Victoria Azarenka is confident that she can make it three Australian Open titles in a row despite stating the tournament as second seed behind Serena Williams.

The Belarusian said that she had no complaints about Williams, who was due to get her campaign under way last night, coming into the event as favourite.

“I don’t really care about it, honestly,” Azarenka said. “I never cared about it. For us, it’s a matter of playing tennis and giving your best on the court. Everybody will be motivated to beat her.”

Azarenka is due to begin her campaign against Sweden’s Johanna Larsson on Rod Laver Court tonight .

Becker Gamble Excites Djokovic

Novak Djokovic accepts that he has taken a gamble by hiring Boris Becker as his head coach.

After losing the US Open final against Rafael Nadal last year and ceding his No1 ranking to the Spaniard, Djokovic decided that he needed a change and brought in the six-time grand slam champion.

Djokovic said: “Whenever you make a change in life, it’s a potential risk. But I don’t want to think from that perspective. I’m really excited about this co-operation. I’m excited about this partnership that I have with Boris.

“All I see is positive results, and I hope for that, obviously. I cannot predict or promise anything now.”

Tomic Boasts of Threat to Nadal

Bernard Tomic believes that he is capable of beating top seed Rafael Nadal in the first round tonight , but knows he will have to be at his best.

The local favourite was hammered in the Sydney International final by fifth-ranked Juan Martin del Potro on Saturday, but had been in good form.

Few believe Tomic, 21, has much of a chance against the 13-time Grand Slam winner, but the Australian said: “Everything is possible these days, everything is possible.

“I’m playing good. I’m pretty confident. I’ve just got to play the tennis I played early throughout Sydney. Obviously if I can do that I’m going to give myself a chance. It’s going to be difficult, going to have to be one of those days where I can play my best.”

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