Wikipedia - Kooyong Classic

The Kooyong Classic is a professional tennis exhibition singles-only tournament, played on outdoor hard courts. It is held annually in January, right before the Australian Open, at the Kooyong Stadium in Kooyong, Melbourne, Australia. Eight invited players participate in the tournament in a promotion/relegation format, playing three matches each over four days to determine the standings from the first place (won all three matches) to the eighth (lost all three matches). Aside from the competition, exhibition matches also take place during the tournament.

History

Former World No. 1 Andy Roddick co-holds the record for most titles with Michael Chang and Andre Agassi, winning three times in 2006, 2007 and 2008
Former World No. 1 Andre Agassi appeared in six finals between 1998 and 2004, winning three and losing three
1989 French Open champion Michael Chang won three back-to-back titles from 1995 to 1997, beating Yevgeny Kafelnikov once, Pete Sampras twice

The first Kooyong exhibition tournament took place in 1988, the year the Australian Open moved from the courts of the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, which had become too small to host the event, to the newly built National Tennis Centre at Flinders Park (which would become known as Melbourne Park in 1996). Initiated by Colin Stubs, still the director of the tournament in 2009, the first Kooyong Invitational was created to continue the tradition of having a world-class tennis tournament at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. Set in December 1988, to allow participants to prepare for the 1989 Australian Open, and played on the club's traditional grass courts, the sixteen-men event comprised fifteen Australian players and Goran Ivanišević from Croatia, and eventually saw the victory of 1988 Australian Open runner-up Pat Cash over countryman Wally Masur in the final.

As it started a sponsoring partnership with Colonial Mutual in 1990, the tournament (known as Colonial Mutual Classic from 1990 to 1992, then Colonial Classic from 1993 to 2001) changed its competition format to an eight-men round-robin tournament, with each player of the two four-men groups playing two round robin games, and a third match for the standings. The tournament's success increased during the Colonial-sponsored years, and started to attract more and more international players, outside of the Australian constituency, as it became the most important warm-up event to the first Grand Slam of the season –the only one to be held in the same city as the Open, in Melbourne. The first non-Australian champion was crowned in 1991, when Australian Open quarterfinalist Goran Prpić from Croatia defeated Richard Fromberg for the title, and the first all-foreign final came in 1993, with eventual World No. 1 Thomas Muster from Austria edging Russian Alexander Volkov. The 1993 Kooyong tournament also included for the first time an eight-players women's event, running concurrently with the men's. The first women's Colonial Mutual Classic featured an all-Australian final, where 1992 Barcelona Olympics doubles bronze medalist Rachel McQuillan defeated fellow bronze medalist Nicole Provis in three sets.

The next year, the Colonial Classic was held in mid-January one, just before the 1995 Australian Open, and switched from grass to hard courts, to make the playing conditions closer to that of the Rebound Ace-surfaced Grand Slam tournament. The new-style Colonial Classic (back to being a men's only tournament) saw American champions like Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Michael Chang starting to compete, with the latter starting a series of three victories at the event from 1995 to 1997. Eventual 2003 Wimbledon Championships runner-up Mark Philippoussis from Australia won the last edition played in a round-robin format in 1998, as the 1999 event was the first played under the current promotion/relegation system, with Swede Thomas Enqvist coming off as the winner. Agassi became the most successful player at the event after his 1998 runner-up finish, reaching five more finals consecutively from 2000 to 2004 (beating Philippoussis in 2000, Yevgeny Kafelnikov in 2001 and Sébastien Grosjean in 2003). Commonwealth Bank took over the sponsorship of the tournament from 2002 to 2004, transforming the Colonial Classic into the Commonwealth Bank International, before the event went sponsorless in 2005, only known as the Kooyong Classic, as World No. 1 Roger Federer from Switzerland collected his first title in Kooyong.

Australian Associated Motor Insurers Limited (AAMI) eventually picked up the event's sponsorship in 2006 for a three-years contract, renewed in 2009 -starting the tournament's run as the AAMI Classic. 2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick tied countrymen Chang and Agassi with three titles (2006, 2007, 2008), Roger Federer won his second title (2009), Fernando Verdasco became the first Spanish champion at the event (2010), before 19-year-old Bernard Tomic (2012) and former World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt (2011, 2013) claimed three consecutive titles for Australia.

The arrival of new tune-up events for the Australian Open, like the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi or the national year-end championships like the Masters France raised questions concerning Kooyong event's future. Different ways to improve the tournament studied by promoter Colin Stubs include lengthening it beyond four days (despite Roddick's withdrawal in 2009, due to the three-match format already being "too taxing" according to the American), reviving the short-lived women's event, or allowing retired players to compete.

As a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament was not held in from 2021 through 2022, before returning from 2023.