Grand Slams are not the ultimate tournaments only for the tennis players, who grow up dreaming of even participating in one of the four majors. They are the ultimate tennis competitions for fans and audiences -offering a unique spectacle full of memorable matches, iconic performances, and epic story-telling behind the games experiences-, the ultimate tennis events for broadcasting and media companies, and the ultimate markets for tennis bettors who test their predictive skills with bookmakers like those offering online betting in Indonesia.
It’s safe to say that the Slams top every other ATP or WTA tournament in the minds and hearts of everyone. It’s the prestige, the image, the feeling, the status, and the whole experience of being part -in one way or another- of the world’s most popular tennis championship.
What makes the Australian Open, the French Open (most commonly referred to as the Roland Garros), the Wimbledon, and the US Open so unique? Which factors make everyone think that these four tournaments are the pinnacle of the sport?
Let’s see in more detail why is that.
- Incredibly big prizes. Unthinkably large amounts of money are being awarded to the winners of the Slams. We are talking about millions of dollars filling the pockets of those who will make it to the top – those who are eventually satisfying every fan and every punter backing them with a winning outright bet (!). And what’s more interesting is that it’s not only those who get the title that earn money. Prizes are there for every qualification round and for every player participating in the majors.
Prize money is huge and it also increases every year. The 2024 Australian Open gave the champion $ 2.05 million (nearly 5.8% up compared to the previous year) and the runner-up $ 1.125 million (6.15% up)! So, basically, we are talking about Jannik Sinner, the 23-year-old Italian phenomenon pocketing more than 2 million for his first Grand Slam, while Daniil Medvedev took home more almost half for getting to the finals.
* Different court surfaces. Players get to develop skills for different surfaces and this makes the whole tournaments so unique. The Australian Open and the US Open are on hard courts, the Rolland Garros is played on clay and the Wimbledon on grass. So, they present different challenges for tennis professionals. Different challenges mean different games, which generally tend to be more spectacular, dramatic, epic, and memorable than any other tour.
- Best of five sets: The four majors are not only about prestige and upscale image. They are also the hardest and most demanding tournaments of all. Men’s singles have a different rule for the winner and that’s the Best-of-five sets, which means more spectacular moments of tennis for the fans and different kinds of skills and strategies for the players.
The best-of-five-sets rule is nowhere else to be found than the four Grand Slams and even though there is some opposition regarding the fact that the tours distinguish between men and women, there are no thoughts – for the time being at least- about abandoning this format. It’s what makes the Slams the ultimate championships in tennis after all.
* Winning all four Slams in one season becomes an absolute success and a lifetime achievement for players. It may surprise you, but the term Grand Slam refers to winning all four major tournaments, but we have come to use this term when talking about each of the four. The Grand Slam, so, is the ultimate goal of every professional tennis player. Being so difficult is what makes it so unique in the first place.
There aren’t many tennis players having won all the major championships in the same calendar year. Novak Djokovic has come too close, but he hasn’t made it yet. For the record, the only players who have achieved a Grand Slam (a total of four Slams in the same season) are five: Don Budge in 1938, Maureen Conolly in 1953, Rod Laver in 1962 and 1969, Margaret Smith Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.
- Slams bring together the top players from all over the world. If you want to see all tennis elite and all-star players in one place, then this is definitely in one of the four majors. Because of what we described previously regarding the uniqueness of the Slams, there is no single player who doesn’t want to be part of these incredible tournaments!