Not really. Given Kyrgios’, Alcaraz’s & Djokovic’s matches all have not before 7pm starts and Nine only has two channels for AO coverage, something had to give. In this case, Nine had made the right call on paper given Djokovic’s opponent is a wildcard player.
Despite that, Djokovic supporters will make their dissatisfaction clear on social media tomorrow night if they can only watch their favourite player via 9Now or Stan Sport.
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I am more surprised he isn’t mentioned in the media release or anything rather than their broadcasting schedule. A “roll call” of the biggest names in tennis would presumably include the most successful male player in history.
As an aside, Basavareddy was very good at the Auckland Open last week.
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Some of the Djokovic BBL comments online are funny… One saying he’s there to get food poisoning from Marvel, another suggests he’s handing out energy discs, one says he wanted to re-live a Melbourne ‘prison’ and another said he wanted to get more torture in Australia by watching the Melbourne teams 
His facial expression looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, somebody’s PR thing?
Brands acing the beginning of 2025 with a grand slam of opportunities
As the superstars of world tennis prepare to start their Australian Open campaign, an incredible line-up of brands shows why Nine’s coverage of the first Grand Slam of the year serves up the biggest platform of marketing opportunities for advertisers.
Nothing unites millions of Australians like sport, and with the Australian Open featuring 15 days of the world’s best tennis, Nine’s coverage shows how the Summer of Tennis is the powerhouse platform for brands at this crucial time of the year.
For the first time, Emirates joins as a major partner of Nine’s Summer of Tennis. As the official airline partner of Tennis Australia, the brand is set to take full advantage of Nine’s cross-platform content ecosystem across Television, Digital, Publishing and Audio.
Also returning as a partner is Uber. This year Uber Eats will deploy an innovative brand campaign leveraging the Australian Open coverage as well as the power of Nine’s suite of hit programming – including Married at First Sight and other tentpole network moments – to bring their AO TVC to life.
A powerful combination of Australia’s most recognised brands have signed on as sponsors, including home appliance brand Haier, tourism company Journey Beyond and beauty brand L’Oreal. These brands are joined by previous returning sponsors ANZ, Bupa, Chemist Warehouse, Chubb, Domain, Google, Kia, Peters Ice Cream and Stan who will all leverage the unique suite of Nine’s Summer of Tennis premium assets.
Viewers will once again be treated to a creative innovation set to engage, elevate and captivate audiences at scale. This will come to life in the form of Augmented Reality, providing Nine’s broadcast partners the ability to own digital brand insertions within Nine’s on-ground live set, Court 9. This will provide Nine’s broadcast partners further brand prominence and contextuality to associate with the Summer of Tennis broadcast coverage, like never seen before.
Global No. 1 appliance brand, Haier, will be utilising the full-service creative enterprise of Powered to create an all-of-home brand TVC and augmented reality executions to bring their brand campaign, ‘Make more time for tennis with Haier,’ to life throughout the tournament…
Chubb will look to build on their brand campaign from last year’s AO broadcast, reinforcing their position as The Official Insurance Partner of the Australian Open. Nine will partner with Chubb to unveil the Chubb Champions Walkout – showcasing the excitement as the best players in the world enter the stadium past the ‘Walk of Champions’ passage. Nine will also feature Chubb’s VIP Seat Upgrade – where during every session of tennis over the two weeks, two lucky fans in Rod Laver Arena will be upgraded to VIP seats and butler service.
With more than 10 million Total TV viewers tuning into last year’s Australian Open, unleashing the marketing power of tennis is the ultimate platform for brands wanting to connect with Australians with the help of globally-renowned Wide World of Sports.
Nine’s sophisticated approach to working with brands in the sporting arena draws on groundbreaking ways to tell a brand’s story in the most effective way possible.
Meanwhile, ANZ will amplify their ANZ Falcon® technology which provides 24/7 fraud protection that is personal to you. This will be promoted via an aerial Falcon® Eye View housed within a start of the art 4D cam operated within the Tennis Park drone.
“Once again, the Summer of Tennis has showcased itself as the ultimate platform across Nine for brands to launch their year. We are thrilled to welcome a number of new brands to our partner program and see the return of so many, as we continue our journey to deliver the most premium and diverse platforms, creative solutions and executions to engage audiences and fans ” said Matt Granger, Nine’s Director of Sales – Sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Nine’s Director of Content Partnerships – Sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games, Anne Gruber, said: “In 2025, Nine will serve up an unforgettable Australian Open for our partner brands. The first Grand Slam of the year will once again deliver the biggest audience and marketing platform of the summer and our partners will have the opportunity to tell their brand story through Nine’s exclusive content and comprehensive coverage utilising cutting-edge technology, immersive viewing and new and innovative ad formats. AO sponsorships deliver unmatched brand impact across brand awareness, consideration and viewer attention and we can’t wait to watch 15 days of nail biting action unfold across Nine’s total media platforms.”
Note: Emirates also sponsors tennis news and score updates on 3AW during the Australian Open.
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Nice to hear ex-league caller Ray Warren provide the voiceover to the opener of today’s coverage.
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Courier expected to arrive in Melbourne “in the next couple of days”
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Nine showed a snippet of what looks like a pretty cool sit-down between Nick Kyrgios and Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey, perhaps in full tonight. Turned rather D&M and inspirational, not sure who was meant to be asking the Qs.
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edit 3:40pm edt
Nice shot of Melbourne Park today via a 9Now world feed
Its clearly one of those new age cameras. 
It’s not 9’s camera.
Tennis Australia runs the host broadcast feed.
Nine is showing the Kokkinakis match on both Gem and Go this evening, a weird but not surprising choice as they have a habit of doing this in previous years.
Reckon it’s just during the 6pm news for Melbourne and Sydney markets
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The Kyrgios hype is just ridiculous, but not surprising.
Nine will be happy with 7 Aussies winning today, can Nick make it 8 of 12 tonight? When’s the last time we had that many into Round 2!
The flow into and out of Nine News was also really good tonight. They’ll be hoping for some big numbers I’ll bet.
edit
Unfortunate for Alcaraz and Joker coverage though, this scheduling clash is the tennis headline from James McKern on news .com.au echoing prominent online global journo Jose Morgado’s post.
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He and de Minaur are the two most well known Aussies on the tour so that’d be why.
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OnAir kinda called this 
He’s already broken the Djoker!
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DAY 3: AUSTRALIAN OPEN BROADCAST SCHEDULE
AUSSIES GO ON THE ATTACK WITH DE MINAUR, POPYRIN AND YOUNG GUN EMERSON JONES ON DAY 3
Aussies Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin are all set to take flight at night on Australian Open Day 3, live and free on the 9Network.
Ranked in the men’s top 10, De Minaur is hell bent on making AO25 one to remember. While Popyrin wants to pick up the momentum he gained from defeating Novak Djokovic in his last Grand Slam showing at the US Open.
In the Day session, World No.1 junior girls player Emerson Jones makes her Australian Open main draw debut when the rising Aussie star faces a difficult Round 1 match up against 2023 AO finalist Elena Rybakina (no.6).
Featured Day 3 games to stream on 9Now include American Taylor Fritz (no.4), Daniil Medvedev and Katie Boulter.
Throughout the 2025 Australian Open, fans will have the ability to watch every point of every match, at any time live, free and on any device in full HD on 9Now.
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