Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley calls for new attraction to Melbourne Park with legend statues

With another Australian Open complete tournament director Craig Tiley is already looking ahead at what can bring in more fans and he believes a statue of Novak Djokovic could be the answer. Despite breaking crowd records in 2025 Tiley said more needs to be done to keep the public engaged year after year proposing a new precinct for Melbourne Park. According to The Herald Sun the Grand Slam boss wants a new attraction with statues showcasing the best players in the world. “I’d like to have a whole precinct full of statues of the great tennis players,” he said. “Every year we put up a new statue of an Australian and this precinct is about tennis, it was built with tennis in mind and we have so many people that come here from right around the world. “They come to the precinct when the Australian Open is not on because they want to see the place that it happens and I think there is more we can offer those fans from the tennis precinct.” Top of the list to be immortalised for Tiley would be the Serbian superstar. “I mean, he’s won this event 10 times and I still think he can win it again,” he said. “I think any time we can recognise tennis or the champions of the game I’m going to go for it. “Whether it’s Novak, Roger Federer, Serena Williams – the list goes on.” Melbourne Park already has busts of 48 Australian tennis Hall of Famers erected around Garden Square while a bronze statue of Rod Laver stands out the front of the arena named in his honour. But there are no statues of international sporting stars. Despite Novak being a controversial figure at recent editions including being booed off the court after his semi-final retirement against Alexander Zverev, Tiley says he’s still well-loved down under. “I focused on the amount of cheering we heard when he walked on the court…I think the booing was not against Novak,” he said. “I think it was more about the disappointment they wouldn’t get to see another unbelievable set of tennis.”