Champions return to defend Australian Open titles in 2026
Record-sized draw underscores growing strength in Australian tennis
Camden Riviere and Claire Fahey will return to the Australian Open in 2026 to defend their singles and doubles titles — the latter with Chris Chapman and Saskia Bollerman respectively — as the tournament sees a record entry and record AUD $70,000 prize purse following the live draw at the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club on Monday.
A strong field is set to descend on Melbourne for the Australian Open women’s draw, with the top four players in the world filling out each of the four seeds. World Champion Claire Fahey returns to defend a title she has held since 2024, and will attempt to win her 10th overall Australian Open title. Should she win, it will be her 49th Open singles title, one short of her husband Rob’s record of 50. She once again enters the tournament as the heavy favourite, having never lost a competitive women’s match on Australian soil.
Her primary opponent will be Lea Van Der Zwalmen, who will make her third appearance at the Australian Open, but her first in Melbourne as the last two editions were both held in Hobart. Should she win through to play Fahey in the final, it will be their first match together since Fahey won the World Championships in Newport back in May, with Van Der Zwalmen having missed both the French and British Opens.
Three other former Australian Open winners will enter the draw. Third seed Tara Lumley won in 2020 and is seeded to play Van Der Zwalmen in the semi-final: a tough assignment given the last time the pair played in Melbourne was at the 2024 Bathurst Cup which resulted in a dominant win for the Frenchwoman. Meanwhile, 2023 winner Saskia Bollerman enters as the fourth seed, seeded to play Fahey in the semi-finals. It will also be Bollerman’s first return to competitive play since the World Championships, having been ruled out of the second half of the year with injury — though she did compete in the Dutch Championships wrong-handed. Finally, 2022 winner Jo See Tan has the unenviable task of facing Van Der Zwalmen in the quarter-final, with their only previous match-up occurring at the French Open in 2023.
The remaining draw is filled out by some rising stars, both of whom will be comfortable on the Melbourne court. Reigning Under 19’s World Champion Katherine Carney will play Lumley in her quarter-final, the former currently undertaking a summer internship at the club where she has improved her handicap rapidly. Meanwhile, Australian number 2 Emma Clyde will challenge Bollerman in her quarter-final, and will be on a high after a stellar year which culminated in defeating Tan in the RMTC A Grade Women’s final. The remaining quarter-final will be between Fahey and a qualifier, namely the winner of Rachel Hollington and Claire Voegele.
The women’s doubles draw will see a selection of unfamiliar pairings as the World Champions Claire Fahey and Tara Lumley temporarily part ways for the tournament. Fahey partners Saskia Bollerman to defend the title they won together in 2025 in Hobart, while Lumley will join forces with Xanthe Ranger, who won the tournament back in 2008. Ranger and Lumley will face second seeds Lea Van Der Zwalmen and Katherine Carney, a partnership that marks a vote of approval in Carney’s rise given as Van Der Zwalmen attempts to win her third doubles Open title.
Tara Lumley’s mother and former World Champion Penny Lumley will also return to the court, once again partnering with Jo See Tan as she had done in the 2023 World Championship. It will be another generational battle, as they take on five-time doubles winner from 1999 to 2004 Prue McCahey and her daughter Julia, with the winner moving on to play Fahey and Bollerman in the semi-finals. Emma Clyde will partner Rachel Hollington in their first round match against Carney & Van Der Zwalmen, while Claire Voegele is still yet to confirm a partner for her match against Ranger and Lumley.
Camden Riviere will return to defend his Australian Open men’s title in his first international tournament since he defended his World Championship against John Lumley in September. It will also mark his first appearance in Melbourne in six years, and the first time he has competed in back-to-back Australian Opens. As with every tournament for the past decade, he enters as a heavy favourite, and will seek to underline why he has been the dominant force in men’s real tennis in his era.
Riviere’s main challenger will likely be one of Nick Howell and Steve Virgona, both of whom return to the Australian Open having been absent in 2025. Seeded second and third respectively, they are drawn to play each other in the bottom-half semi-final in what could be one of the most anticipated matches of the tournament. Howell has the better head to head record over recent years, but Virgona will take a lot of confidence out of his stunning victory in the French Open final in September — where he carried on despite breaking his wrist mid-match. Despite both players claiming Australian nationality, it would be their first singles match together on Australian soil.
In the top half of the draw, a rematch of the 2025 final looms, as defending finalist and top Australian amateur Kieran Booth is seeded to play Riviere in the quarter-final. Booth must first get through a first round match against Tony Hollins, who will make his Australian debut, while Riviere has a first round against the ever-improving Ben Hudson, playing his first ever Open having recently moved to Melbourne.
But it is the semi-final place against Riviere that will be the most fiercely contested of the whole draw. In one first round match, fifth seed Levi Gale will have his work cut out for him against local favourite Michael Williams, with the pair separated by just 5 handicap points. However, in the other first round match, fourth seed Lewis Williams will continue his battle against Women’s World Champion Claire Fahey, with Fahey holding a tiny 0.2 handicap points advantage. Though the pair have had plenty of close matches over the years — including in the same round of the last Australian Open — Fahey hasn’t been able to register a victory since the British Under 24’s Open in 2015. Should the two seeds progress, it will be another rivalry resuming from the junior ranks. It would be Gale’s sixteenth match against Lewis Williams since 2021, during which time the Prested head professional has registered fourteen wins to the Leamington head professional’s one. It would also be the fourth consecutive ranking points tournament that the pair have drawn each other, with Williams failing to win a set in the last three attempts.
The bottom half of the draw will have just as much intrigue, at least as far as the first round matches are concerned. Chief among those matches will be the battle for bragging rights in the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club pro shop as eighth seed Chris Chapman plays touring pro John Woods-Casey, with the winner seeded to play Steve Virgona. Though Woods-Casey has yet to take a set off Chapman in level competitions, his recent international experience and Tasmanian Open victory over Booth could be key in what should be a well-attended match. Meanwhile, seventh seed Nino Merola will face a qualifier who in all likelihood will be his Radley protégé Henry Henman. The two have played in the last two British Opens, with both matches running to five sets across four hours, with one victory each. Henman will fancy himself as he will have two rounds of qualifying to play on the court while Merola will enter cold. Finally, rising Australian star Oliver Pridmore has drawn the tough first round match against Nick Howell and will look to take advantage of the second seed’s historic weakness early in tournament draws.
The qualifying draw for the Australian Open will be the largest this century, with eight players competing for two places across two rounds. In the first pathway, Henry Henman must first overcome Sammy Legg — a repeat of the draw from the recent British Under 24’s, before running into either Paul Rosedale or Baudouin Huynh-Lenhardt. Rosedale will be tough opposition for the young Henman, and will be difficult to play on his home court. The favourite in the other pathway will be the professional from Sydney, Alexander Marino-Hume, who has a first qualifying match against Eli Kozma, both of whom are making their Open qualifying debut. The winner will play either Nick Stenning or Rhys Williams, who will play off in the closest qualifying match on handicap, separated by 0.8 points.
Camden Riviere and Chris Chapman will again join forces to defend their Australian Open doubles title, though unusually for Riviere, they do so as second seeds, with Nick Howell and Steve Virgona playing as first seeds, the latter having won the French Open together in 2025. Howell and Virgona face a tough first round match against the top Australian amateurs Kieran Booth and Oliver Pridmore. In their semi-final, they will have to play the winners of a match between Henry Henman and Nino Merola and the Williams brothers: Michael and Daniel in what will be an exciting match for casual viewers as each of the four bring a unique dynamism to the doubles court. Chapman and Riviere’s route to the final passes through the only qualifier in the draw, and then past the winner of either long-term partners Levi Gale and Lewis Williams, or the Melbourne duo of John Woods-Casey and Ben Hudson.
The doubles qualifying is also the largest draw since 2017, with four pairs competing across two rounds for one place in the main draw. Paul Rosedale and Tony Hollins enter as first seeds and favourites, though will have to fight through the second seeds Claire Fahey and Alexander Marino-Hume. Sammy Legg and Baudouin Hunyh-Lenhardt join forces for the second year running, and though they are unseeded, they are still a threat in qualifying, as are Nick Stenning and Rhys Williams.
The Australian Open is scheduled to run from 5–13 January at the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club, ahead of the Boomerang Cup later in January. The full details of match timings will be published shortly.
2026 Australian Open draw:
Women’s singles qualifying:
Rachel Hollington vs Claire Voegele
Women’s singles:
Claire Fahey (1) vs Qualifier 1
Emma Clyde vs Saskia Bollerman (4)
Tara Lumley (3) vs Katherine Carney
Jo See Tan vs Lea Van Der Zwalmen (2)
Women’s doubles:
Claire Fahey & Saskia Bollerman (1) vs BYE
Prue McCahey & Julia McCahey vs Jo See Tan & Penny Lumley (4)
Xanthe Ranger & Tara Lumley (3) vs Claire Voegele & TBC
Emma Clyde & Rachel Hollington vs Katherine Carney & Lea Van Der Zwalmen (2)
Open singles qualifying:
Qualifier 1:
Henry Henman (1) vs Sammy Legg
Baudouin Huynh-Lenhardt vs Paul Rosedale (3)
Qualifier 2:
Rhys Williams vs Nick Stenning
Eli Kozma vs Alexander Marino-Hume (2)
Open singles:
Camden Riviere (1) vs Ben Hudson
Tony Hollins vs Kieran Booth (6)
Levi Gale (5) vs Michael Williams
Claire Fahey vs Lewis Williams (4)
Steve Virgona (3) vs Qualifier 2
John Woods-Casey vs Chris Chapman (8)
Nino Merola (7) vs Qualifier 1
Oliver Pridmore vs Nick Howell (2)
Open doubles qualifying:
Paul Rosedale & Tony Hollins (1) vs Sammy Legg & Baudouin Huynh-Lenhardt
Nick Stenning & Rhys Williams vs Claire Fahey & Alexander Marino-Hume (2)
Open doubles
Nick Howell & Steve Virgona (1) vs Kieran Booth & Oliver Pridmore
Michael Williams & Daniel Williams vs Henry Henman & Nino Merola (4)
Levi Gale & Lewis Williams (3) vs Ben Hudson & John Woods-Casey
Qualifier 1 vs Camden Riviere & Chris Chapman (2)