Australian Open 2009 exclusively on Abu Dhabi Al Riyadiya

Abu Dhabi Al Riyadiya will be transmitting all the matches live with Arabic commentary by Mabrouk Mohammed Ali daily from January 19th till February 1st, from 4:00 am till 5 pm (UAE time); and with simultaneous commentary in English on Abu Dhabi Sports 2.

Australian Open is one of the four major tennis events known as the Grand Slams: the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open being the other three.

The matches will be shown in two sessions, the day session starts at 4 am (UAE time) and will end around 11:30 am. The night session starts at 12:30 pm (UAE time) and ends around 17:00 pm.

The Australian City of Melbourne will again play host to the first Grand Slam event of the tennis calendar, and the 97th edition of the Australian Open. All the top ranked players including Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, who played in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, Ana Ivanovic, Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams and Serena Williams will show their best skills and temperaments competing against each other for one of the foremost prizes of the game.

The Australian Open 2009 total amount of prizes is AUS$22,000,000. Last year, Novak Djokovic became the first player from Serbia to win the title, he won against Federer at the semi final of the 2008 Australian Open, before he went on to defeat France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and claimed his first grand slam title.

In the women's competition in 2008, Maria Sharapova overcame a season riddled with injury to win the 2008 Australian Open women's championship in a 7-5 6-3 defeat against former world number one Ana Ivanovic.