2025 Australian Open champion Madison Keys made her return to the tournament with a first-round win on Tuesday. And another star player from the 2025 tournament has also returned for the 2026 edition: Mecca.
“Beauty is the new pillar that we’re looking to incubate with Mecca,” said Roddy Campbell, director of partnerships and international business at Tennis Australia, of the Australian multi-brand beauty retailer, which returns as an official Australian Open sponsor for the second consecutive year. “Mecca is an iconic Australian band and very impactful in that Gen-Z demographic, in particular.”
At the 2025 AO, Mecca provided gift bags to more than 800 players and 2,500 VIP guests. Organizers anticipate the 2026 tournament, which began on January 12 and will conclude on February 1, will welcome more than 1.2 million visitors to Melbourne.
Campbell credited Mecca’s presence at the 2025 tournament with attracting other Gen-Z-friendly partners, like Shake Shack, to the 2026 Open. Such partners are crucial for helping tennis reach a younger audience. According to Campbell, the average Australian Open viewer is around 50 years old, though that number is growing younger each year.
“Tennis is in vogue at the moment, and it’s fueled by some exciting young talent on the court,” said Campbell. A new crop of star players like Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz on the men’s side and Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek on the women’s have taken the mantle of past superstars like Roger Federer and Serena Williams.
Mecca has already capitalized on the popularity of those new players. The beauty giant posted an Instagram Reel on the opening weekend of the tournament showing players like Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz stopping by the Mecca pop-up for beauty touch-ups.
Mecca is not the only beauty player to get in on the tennis game. At the 2025 U.S. Open, brands like Dove made a play for the fans lining up for Honeydeuce cocktails with on and offsite activations. Campbell said the AO has plans to bring third-party brands stocked at Mecca into the tournament in a bigger way in future years, and even stage international activations should Mecca expand to markets like the U.K. or U.S. down the line.
“We’re definitely trying to tap into that trend for beauty and wellness,” he said. “We can almost collaborate to create a platform for a range of other brands. That’s where I see potential in the future.”
But also key to making tennis relevant to younger viewers are social media influencers. Campbell said Ralph Lauren, which has been an AO partner for six years, is bringing roughly 200 influencers and celebrities to the grounds this year. Influencers like Morgan Riddle, girlfriend to U.S. star Taylor Fritz, have helped a new generation of tennis fans connect with the sport through lifestyle partnerships and behind-the-scenes access.
“With the fashion and music and technology and the influencers, [the tennis audience] is definitely creeping younger every year,” said Campbell. “And it’s got a slight female skew, as well, compared to other sports.”
2026 is gearing up to be a major year for international sports fans, with the 2026 Winter Olympics coming to Milan in February and the 2026 World Cup kicking off across North America in June. That means there is ample competition for activations by brands looking to get a piece of the increasing crossover between sports and beauty and fashion fans.
But Campbell is confident that tennis’s unique atmosphere and global reach can make it an attractive platform for brands seeking consumers.
“We want to be like the Super Bowl for experiential marketing, effectively. We want to give people a footprint and create some amazing interactive fan experiences,” he said. “It’s not just about investing hundreds of thousands of dollars for a million people. We can get that seen by 100 million people, if we do it well.”
Longtime tennis fans have bemoaned the increased presence of brands and influencers at major tournaments — and the crowds and prices that often come with them. Would-be visitors to the 2025 Australian Open took to social media to vent frustration over the ticket prices for the men’s singles final, which ranged from $1,299-$8,999 AUD ($874-$6,000 USD). That’s a relative bargain compared to top-tier seats for the U.S. Open men’s singles final, however, which passed the $19,000 mark in 2025.
The ultimate success of AO’s 2026 partnerships with Mecca or Shake Shack, for example, remains to be seen. But the tournament will set the tone for the other three tennis grand slams to follow this year.
“A success for the Australian Open is going to set the French Open and the U.S. Open up for good tournaments themselves,” said Campbell.
