The Australian Open is an annual tennis tournament created in 1905 and played on outdoor hard courts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The women's singles was first contested in 1922 along with the women's and mixed doubles competition as the last three events to be added. The Australian Open is played during two weeks mid-January, and has been chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tournaments of the tennis season since 1987. The event was not held from 1940 to 1945 because of World War II, and 1986 because Tennis Australia wanted to move the tournament start from mid-December 1986 to mid-January 1987. Margaret Court holds the all-time record for singles titles at this tournament with 11; 7 in the Amateur Era and 4 in the Open Era. Serena Williams holds the Open Era record with 7 singles titles. History Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia have all held the event. The competition switched locations every year before it settled in 1972 at the Kooyong Stadium, moving to Flinders Park, now Melbourne Park, in 1988. Several calendar changes took place for the Australian Open, from January to December in 1972 to bypass the January-to-June International Lawn Tennis Federation (ITLF) ban of World Championship Tennis (WCT) players; from late to early December in 1977 to avoid the Christmas holidays, which resulted in having two Opens in the season; and back to January, when the planned December 1986 edition was moved to early 1987, leaving no Open for the 1986 season. An all British and an all American final were contested in 1935 and 1979 respectively, but otherwise every other final contested until 1980 featured an Australian player. The women's singles' rules have undergone several changes, since the first edition. This event has been contested in a knockout format, and all matches played at the best-of-three sets. Since 1922, all sets have been decided in the advantage format, with six games and two games difference. The lingering death best-of-twelve points tie-break was introduced in 1971, and used for the first two sets since then, except from 1980 to 1982, when the tie-break was also played in final sets. The court surface changed once, from grass (1922–1987) to hard courts, since the move to Flinders Park in 1988. No tennis player has won this event on both grass and Rebound Ace; Serena Williams is the only player to win the