Swiatek backed by 'Australian Open 2025 Girls Edition' at Melbourne Park

MELBOURNE : It took a few years of planning for four Polish university friends living on four different continents but the dream of getting together at the Australian Open finally came true this month.

Karolina Minczuk and her friends represent a growing wave of tennis enthusiasts, many from Eastern Europe and often women, who organise themselves in groups to travel to tournaments in the same way soccer or cricket fans have done for decades.

"We said, 'we are doing the Australian Open 2025 Girls Edition'," said thirty-something Minczuk, who lives in the English city of Cambridge.

"Our families, children, husbands, they are all left at home."

Minczuk, Magda Polanowska-Drozdz from Los Angeles, and Magda Piorko from Johannesburg descended on Ewa Foroncewicz, who has lived in Melbourne for a decade, and the quartet will attend the tournament for as many days as Polish players are on court.

"Polish women from all over the world cheering for Polish tennis players," Polanowska-Drozdz said on Thursday after witnessing compatriot Iga Swiatek dominate Rebecca Sremkova in the second round of the year's first Grand Slam.

The trip cost the women thousands of dollars and it took days of travelling for some of them to get to Melbourne, but they said it was all worth it.

Dressed from head to toe in the red and white of the Polish flag, their presence at the stadium courts is noticeable and their nationality unmistakeable.

With the help of Melburnian, Katarzyna Paternoga, they have coordinated with other Polish expatriates and visitors to form what has become one of the Australian Open's most visible fan groups.

"We analyse the schedules together, we buy tickets together, we sit together in the stadiums, with flags and colours," said