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The Australian Open was the last of the 4 Grand Slams to allow women to compete. The first Australian Open Women's Singles event was held in 1922, 17 years after the tournament was initiated.
Australian Margaret Molesworth was the inaugural champion. Initially, the tournament was not very popular drawing in a small pool of players mainly from Australia and New Zealand. Over the years, just as the Men's game grew leaps and bounds in popularity and participation, the women's game was not far behind.
In the early days, Women's Singles matches at the Australian Open were decided in 5 sets just like Men's. The Australian Open was the second Grand Slam after the US Open to offer equal prize money to both Men and Women competitors. This has been the norm since 2001.
The winner of the Australian Open Women's Singles trophy takes home a replica of the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Trophy named in honor of the great Champion who won the Australian Open 5 times. Margaret Court is the most successful Women's player at the Australian Open with 11 Singles, 8 Doubles and 4 Mixed Doubles Titles.
The Margaret Court Arena which is the second biggest arena among Australian Open stadia is named after her. We take a look at the competition's 5 youngest winners :
#5 Steffi Graf
One of the sport's greatest athletes, Steffi Graf is the only tennis athlete to win the Golden Slam - All 4 Grand Slams and the Olympics Gold in the same year. A prodigious talent, Graf took the tennis world by storm in the late 1980s with her aggressive blend of tennis and charm on and off the court.
Ranked Number 1 in the WTA rankings for a record 377 weeks, Graf won 22 Grand Slam titles and is the only player to win at least 4 Grand Slam titles in each of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments. Graf won her first Australian Open in 1988 - the same year she won the historic 'Golden Slam'. She was 19 years, 223 days old at the time.
#4 Hana Mandlikova
Czech born Hana Mandlikova was a multiple Grand Slam winner - winning 4 Grand Slam Singles titles, 1 Grand Slam Doubles title as well as the Fed Cup thrice. Mandlikova is the daughter of noted Czechoslovakian Olympian Vilem Mandlik. When the WTA established the junior ranking system in 1978, she became the first player to be ranked Junior World Number 1.
Mandlikova's first Grand Slam title came at the 1980 Australian Open at the age of 18 years, 318 days. She ended Chris Evert's 72 match win streak on clay at the 1981 French Open and also put a stop to Martina Navratilova's 54 match win streak in 1983. Mandlikova was inducted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1994.
#3 Margaret Court
The most successful tennis player of all-time, Margaret Court holds many unique records. She is the only player among both Men and Women to have won - all 4 Singles and all 4 Mixed Doubles Grand Slams the same year. She is one of 3 women to have won all 4 Grand Slams across 3 categories.
She won a whopping 192 Singles titles including 22 Grand Slams, 19 Doubles Grand Slam titles, 21 Mixed Doubles Grand Slam trophies, 2 WTA Finals victories and 4 Fed Cups. She holds the record of having won the most WTA titles in a single year - 21. Margaret Court won the Australian Open Singles title a record 11 times, the first of which came in 1960 when she was aged 17 years, 199 days.
#2 Monica Seles
Yugoslavian turned American citizen Monica Seles won an impressive 8 Grand Slam titles before turning 20 - a feat no other tennis athlete has ever accomplished. She won 9 Grand Slam Singles titles overall, WTA Finals twice and the Olympic Bronze medal at the Sydney Olympic Games 2000.
She won the Hopman Cup in 1991 for Yugoslavia along with her partner Goran Prpic. Later after acquiring US Citizenship, she helped USA win the Fed Cup thrice. Her first Australian Open came in the year 1991 when she was 17 years, 55 days old.
#1 Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis showed immense potential as a teenager and is the youngest ever Women's Grand Slam champion in the Open Era and also the youngest World Number 1 in WTA's ranking history.
She won the 1997 Australian Open at the age of 16 years, 117 days beating Mary Pierce in the final. That year, Hingis made the final of all 4 Grand Slams winning all but the French Open. Hingis won 5 Grand Slam Singles titles, 13 Doubles titles and 7 Mixed Doubles titles.
