Philip Mallis
Margaret Court Arena & John Cain Arena
The two other roofed courts — where second-week tennis is often better than the price tag suggests
Rod Laver Arena gets the finals, but the Australian Open runs on three roofed courts, not one. Margaret Court Arena and John Cain Arena are both smaller, both genuinely good places to watch tennis, and both worth knowing before you plan your day around Rod Laver alone.
Margaret Court Arena opened in 1988 as "Show Court One," seating 6,000. A 2010-2014 redevelopment took it to 7,500 seats and added its own retractable roof, the fastest of its kind in the world at the time, closing in around five minutes. It was renamed for Margaret Court, Australia's most successful female player and holder of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, in January 2003. The name has been contested for years: Court's public opposition to same-sex marriage led Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King to call publicly for a rename, and the debate resurfaces most Januarys when Court herself appears at the tournament. Tennis Australia has kept the name. Whatever your view of that, the court itself plays well: closer to the action than Rod Laver's steeper bowl, with a more intimate atmosphere for second-week matches that haven't yet earned Rod Laver billing. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps
John Cain Arena is the third roofed court and the one most likely to catch a rising player or a good doubles match. It has changed names four times since opening in 2000: Vodafone Arena, Hisense Arena, Melbourne Arena, and John Cain Arena from December 2020, honoring the Victorian premier whose government backed building Melbourne Park in the first place. It holds around 10,500 for tennis, more than Margaret Court, and doubles as Melbourne's main indoor concert venue outside the tournament. During the Open it's typically where the tournament schedules mixed doubles, wheelchair events, and early-round singles that need indoor cover without needing Rod Laver's capacity. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps
Both arenas sit within a few minutes' walk of Rod Laver, inside the same Melbourne Park precinct, so moving between all three across a single day session is straightforward — the harder part is the ticketing, not the geography.
Both arenas also do genuine double duty outside the tournament itself. Margaret Court Arena hosts other sporting and entertainment events through the rest of the year, and John Cain Arena is Melbourne's primary indoor concert venue when tennis isn't in town — worth knowing if either name sounds familiar from a gig announcement rather than a tennis broadcast.
Why it's special
Rod Laver Arena is where the Open puts its biggest matches, but Margaret Court and John Cain are where you're more likely to see genuinely close tennis without the premium price tag. I'd rather sit in Margaret Court Arena for a fourth-round match between two players I've actually heard of than pay Rod Laver prices for an early-round mismatch. The roofed-court system itself is what makes this whole event weather-proof, and it's worth remembering that took two separate multi-year building projects to get right: MCA's own retractable roof wasn't finished until 2014, decades after Rod Laver's. John Cain's four names in twenty years is its own small piece of Melbourne politics and sponsorship history, and its current name is the one that actually sticks, a rare case of an Australian venue landing on a public figure's name instead of a corporate one and keeping it. None of this is background trivia, it's the reason you can walk between three genuinely different, genuinely good tennis experiences in one afternoon without ever leaving the same few hundred meters of Melbourne Park.
Insider tips
- 1
A Rod Laver Arena reserved seat does not include Margaret Court Arena — Margaret Court needs a separate reserved ticket entirely, but is usually cheaper and easier to get for evening sessions with popular second-week matches.
- 2
John Cain Arena tends to schedule doubles and wheelchair events during the day session — check the daily order of play rather than assuming it's only singles overflow.
- 3
MCA's roof closes faster than Rod Laver's original design did, so a rain delay there tends to resolve quicker if you're deciding whether to wait it out or move to another court.
Practical info
- Hours
- Gates typically open around 1-2 hours before day session start during the tournament; exact times published closer to the 2027 schedule
- Cost
- Margaret Court Arena sits in the same Show Court Reserved tier as Rod Laver, roughly US$119-211 for a single session. John Cain Arena is priced separately as part of the Grandstand tier, roughly US$56-84 — genuinely the cheaper of the two roofed venues, not just a step down from Margaret Court. See the Ticket Guide for the full tier breakdown.
- Access
- Both arenas require their own separate reserved ticket via ausopen.com — a Rod Laver Arena ticket does not carry over to either. Tickets are typically released in tiers from around October the year before.
- Getting there
- Both arenas sit inside Melbourne Park, within a 3-5 minute walk of Rod Laver Arena and each other. Reach the precinct via Flinders Street Station (10-minute walk via Batman Avenue) or Jolimont Station (Hurstbridge/Mernda lines). Trams 70 and 75 stop nearby on Flinders Street and Wellington Parade.
- Address
- Melbourne Park, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
- Website
- ausopen.com
What to avoid
Don't buy a John Cain Arena ticket expecting the same seating rake or atmosphere as Rod Laver — it's a genuinely different, flatter multi-purpose venue built for concerts as much as tennis, and some seats have side-on sightlines to the baseline. Avoid assuming Margaret Court Arena is the lesser or overflow court — plenty of quarterfinal-quality matches are deliberately scheduled there, and treating it as a fallback means missing tennis that's often better than what's showing on an outside court at the same time.
