Seven’s Tennis drops to 679,000 as temperatures rise at Australian Open

Soaring temperatures suspended play in the Australian Open yesterday as Seven’s audience fell to 679,000 for day four of the tournament, preliminary overnight metro ratings show.

Play went on into the early hours of Friday morning as Aussie hope Nick Kyrgios put up a tough fight against Frenchman Benoit Pair before losing in five sets, and Great Britain’s Andy Murray defeated Vincent Millot in three, sealing victory just before midnight.

The later part of the tennis averaged 629,000 metro viewers, not including Perth, where the tennis was on 7Two from 6pm to 9.30pm. The tennis averaged 295,000 viewers across the five cities on 7Two.

Although the early portion of the tennis was the most popular non-news program of the night, its audience was smaller than ABC News for the first time this week.