Rise of the Demon provides headache for AO organisers

Not since Ash Barty has all of Australia been behind a tennis star. CHRIS CAVANAGH looks at the figures showing Alex de Minaur is the most popular Australian around.

Novak Djokovic might be the King of the Australian Open, but Alex de Minaur is the tournament’s Marquee Man.

Kids want to be him and adults want to see him, which is going to cause some headaches for officials scheduling the draw at Melbourne Park over coming days.

Any fixture on Rod Laver Arena can hardly be considered “off Broadway”, but a 1.30pm start on a Wednesday for de Minaur’s second-round match against Matteo Arnaldi was hardly “prime time”, either.

Ratings figures from the first three days of the Australian Open have shown audiences are far more interested in local hopes than anything else – and 7pm is when they are tuning in.

Host broadcaster Channel 9 recorded an average national audience of 553,000 for Serbian Djokovic’s first-round win over Croatia’s Dino Prizmic on Sunday night in the 7pm slot on Rod Laver Arena.

At the same time the next night, an average national audience of 914,000 watched Sydney product de Minaur move through to the second round of the tournament after his opponent Milos Raonic retired injured in the third set.

A peak of 1.199 million people turned on their televisions to catch a glimpse of de Minaur in action.

Aussie Alex de Minaur is through to the third round, and he’s nearly universally adored across the country. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

That was a big win for Nine, who paid $60 million a year for the broadcast rights to the Australian Open under the current deal.

The broadcaster had another night to celebrate when a peak of 1.303 million people tuned in to watch fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis win a five-set tie-breaker against Austria’s Sebastian Ofner on Tuesday evening.

There’s no doubt that Nine executives will be hoping for more de Minuar in prime time as schedules get drawn up for the third round and beyond.

However, Australian Open organisers also have to balance the requests of international broadcasters in their planning.

Eurosport has been a broadcast partner into Europe since 1995 and an afternoon match for Djokovic would be beamed into Europe in the middle of the night.

By contrast, a 7pm local start for Djokovic hits the screens in Serbia at a more reasonable viewing time of 9am.

Djokovic – the No.1 seed who has made Rod Laver Arena his own – is on the same side of the draw as de Minaur, adding to the scheduling dilemmas.

De Minaur – who played three of his four matches at last year’s Australian Open in prime time – is more worried about where he plays than when.

“They’re completely different matches (day and night matches), when it comes to conditions and depending on the weather as well,” de Minaur said when asked if he had a time preference.

“But any time I get a chance to play on Rod Laver Arena, it’s a special moment.

“Walking out there, seeing a full, packed crowd all supporting me, it’s a pretty good feeling.

“I’m hoping to play a lot more matches on that court.”

The Australian public – and Nine – will have their fingers crossed there are a few more of those matches in prime time this year as the No.10 seed carries the hopes of a nation on his shoulders.

Originally published as Rise of the Demon provides headache for AO organisers