‘Fortnite’ Summer Smash Takes Over Australian Open Court

The Australian Open has been commanding tennis enthusiasts’ attention over the weekend as the first of several major tennis tournaments kicked off 2019, but Fortnite players also got their time in the spotlight with an Australian Open court being transformed for a Summer Skirmish event.

Touted as the biggest competitive gaming event Australia has ever seen, the Summer Skirmish event took place recently in the Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne, Australia. A replay of that broadcast can be seen above for anyone who missed it with, but for many of the attendees and others who were expecting the weekend to be all about the Australian Open, seeing the arena transformed into a gaming spectacle was quite the event.

The event which was organized by Epic Games offered a huge prize pool for its competitors with $500,000 being given awarded to Solo players depending on how well they did. Jesse “X2Twins Jesse” Eckley of the Renegades esports organization was crowned the victor and won $100,000 during the event with the rest of the top 10 players taking home large prizes as well.

The Fortnite event is one of many tournaments that Epic Games has created in the wake of Fortnite’s growing esports scene. Other competitions like the Summer Skirmish and Winter Skirmish have taken place in the past with equally large prize pools offering huge incentives for competitors to take part.

Part of the rebroadcast of Fortnite’s Summer Smash event can be seen in the Twitch video at the top.