Craig Tiley arrived as Tennis Australia’s director of tennis in 2005 and, two decades and two high-profile roles later, will leave behind a complex and formidable legacy.
The Australian Open, which he has overseen since his 2006 appointment as tournament director, has expanded into the acclaimed event that dominates the sporting landscape each January. As chief executive of TA since 2013, Tiley’s dual roles have extended his influence beyond the grand slam’s monster success.
Entirely Tiley? No, but the highest-paid sports administrator in the country has built both an impressive empire and a reputation as a political maestro. A bold innovator with limitless ambition for himself and the event shaped in his player-accommodating vision.
By most measures – attendance, eyeballs, prize money, athletes’ praise – Tiley built on the solid foundations he inherited to transform the Australian Open into a colossal entertainment and sport event. Probably in that order too, entertainment then sport, for on-court offerings have long been just one part of a package that is now more about music, food and partying than serves and backhands.
Tiley was a masterful operator unafraid to harness narratives to suit his plans. He leveraged concerns that the Open could be pinched by Sydney, or even China or the Middle East, to attract state government investment in facilities – including three state-of-the-art roofed stadiums. A Sunday start to expand the event to 13 days, as at Roland Garros, was explained as a way to help avoid the late night sessions that could stretch into early mornings, when it was mostly about the extra dollars generated by spreading the opening round across three days rather than two.
This year’s rebadging of the tournament as a three-week event when “Opening Week” was still just qualifying and multiple exhibitions, plus the smash hit that was the million dollar One Point Slam: all trademark Tiley. But given that it propelled crowd numbers from the 554,858 in 2007 to an extraordinary 1.4 million in 2026, is anyone arguing about his approach? Only some of the general public stuck in the crush and the queues as corporate guests and influencers breeze past, and those who chafe at the growing commercialism.
There has also been a touch of Teflon about his reign. Somehow, Tiley weathered the criticism over the handling of the Novak Djokovic as the pandemic lingered in 2022, when the unvaccinated world No 1 was deported on tournament eve after a spell in hotel detention and tennis dominated the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
In fact, Tiley nominated surviving the immense challenges posed by Covid – including a $100m loss on the 2021 edition played amid strict quarantines and protocols – as among his proudest achievements, along with the transformation of the AO and performance and participation.
Australian player development remains the most problematic area of Tiley’s time at the top of TA, given that US import Maya Joint heads the Australian WTA singles rankings at No 29, and world No 80 Kim Birrell is the only pathway product among the four in the top 100.
Meanwhile, there’s a significant gap between world No 6 Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin at No 45, and limited emerging talent. Noting, too, that the tensions around the tenure of Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt existed long before this month’s Demon-less flop in Ecuador.
In one of his many interviews since confirming his departure, Tiley listed providing more seats, shade, space and screens as priorities for his replacement. Which is all fine in a tournament operations sense, but a few more star players in the post-Barty pipeline would be welcome, too.
As for the future, with the board preferring that the roles of TA and Australian Open boss remain in one pair of hands, the favoured internal candidates are chief tennis officer, Tom Larner, and events boss, Stephen Farrow, as well as Tennis Queensland chief executive, Cam Pearson.
But some are sceptical that framework is sustainable post-Tiley, given his workaholism and penchant for control. While international executive recruitment firm Egon Zehnder has been engaged to run the search process, Tiley will stay on for several months and play a key role in choosing a successor, who he says will probably come from within tennis. With the top job at the United States Tennis Association waiting, and given he leaves behind a strategic plan through to 2030, it seems his influence will stretch across two continents now.
Regardless, Tiley returns to the US homeland of his wife, Ali, at the age of 64 to head a far bigger and more complex organisation, having made an outsized impact on the Australian tennis landscape, elevating its showpiece event and cultural footprint while navigating some choppy waters along the way.
