surface_played_on japan open 
The Pan Pacific Open , currently sponsored by Toray Industries , is an outdoor ___MASK40___ tennis tournament held annually in Tokyo , Japan . It is a WTA Premier Tournament on the WTA Tour . The Australian Open is a major tennis tournament held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne , Australia . First held in 1905 , the tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year  the other three being the French Open , Wimbledon and the US Open . It features men ' s and women ' s singles ; men ' s , women ' s and mixed doubles and junior ' s championships ; as well as wheelchair , legends and exhibition events . Prior to 1988 the tournament had been played on ___MASK20___ . Since 1988 two types of ___MASK40___ surfaces have been used at Melbourne Park  green Rebound Ace to 2007 and blue Plexicushion from 2008 . The Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships is a tennis tournament held in Ariake Tennis Forest Park with its center court Ariake Coliseum , located in Kt , Tokyo , Japan . Held since 1972 , the championship includes men ' s singles and doubles competitions . Until 2008 it was a joint tournament for both men and women , but since 2008 Ariake Coliseum has hosted another women ' s tournament , Toray Pan Pacific Open . On the women ' s side the tournament was held since 1979 and had famous champions such as Kimiko Date ( 4 victories between 1992 to 1996 ) , Ai Sugiyama , Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova ( twice ) . Prior to the advent of the ATP Tour , the Japan Open was known as the Tokyo Outdoor Grand Prix and was part of the Grand Prix tennis tour between 1972 and 1989 . Monica Seles (, , born December 2 , 1973 ) is a former Yugoslav world no . 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame . An ethnic Hungarian , she was born and raised in Novi Sad , SFR Yugoslavia . She became a naturalized American citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007 . She won nine Grand Slam singles titles , eight of them while a citizen of Yugoslavia and the final as a citizen of United States of America . In 1990 , Seles became the youngest - ever French Open champion at the age of 16 . She went on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday and was the year - end World No . 1 in 1991 and 1992 . However , on April 30 , 1993 , she was the victim of an on - court attack , when a man stabbed her in the back with a long knife ; Seles did not return to tennis for over two years . Though she enjoyed some success after rejoining the tour in 1995 , including a fourth Australian Open title in 1996 , she was unable to consistently reproduce her best form . She played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open , but did not officially retire until February 2008 . The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport , Rhode Island , United States . It honors players and contributors to the sport of tennis and includes a museum , ___MASK20___ tennis courts , an indoor tennis facility , and a court tennis ( or real tennis ) facility .