Day two of the Australian Open reached approximately 3.8 million viewers nationally, while the night session, which featured Barty, de Minaur and Roger Federer, drew an average of 1.07 million combined metro and regional viewers.

The Big Bash game between the struggling Melbourne Stars and Sydney Sixers pulled in an average 766,000 combined viewers, well down on the previous night when the BBL outrated the opening night of the tennis.

De Minaur's loss to Tomas Berdych peaked at 1.3 million people, while Barty's come-from-behind win over Aryna Sabalenka hit 1.1 million.

Barty, who played during season one of the Women's Big Bash with the Brisbane Heat while taking a break from tennis, looks set to provide Seven with a ratings bonanza if she can mount a deep run through the Australian Open.

"Australians just love those comeback stories, and I think you can call it a comeback with where she's been to get through to this point," Seven West Media chief revenue officer Kurt Burnette said.

"Like any sport, it's about the stories that are going on behind the sport and there's certainly great stories starting to build around Australians in the Australian Open.

"Every year we hope that Australians can perform and that's certainly going to improve the numbers and we certainly saw that last night."

After a slow start on Monday, Seven's coverage reached a cumulative total of five million viewers over its first two days, which makes it equal with the first two days of last year's tournament.

But an improvement on 12 months ago looks on the cards if the likes of Barty and Australia's top-ranked male, Nick Kyrgios, can advance beyond the early rounds.

And with Federer and Rafael Nadal on opposite sides of the draw again, the Australian Open may yet be treated to a dream men's final for the second year running.

"People are very quick to forgive as well: Kyrgios, if he performs well, they soon forget some of the things that they might not have enjoyed in his behaviour previously," Burnette said. "Win a couple of games and they'll be right behind him.

"As we saw last year, Federer-Nadal, that's as good as an Australian story. If those guys go well and get to the final again, that'd just be unbelievable.

"We've had the tennis for a number of years and what the tennis does do, it can be inconsistent, depending on the draws and the stories that are going behind it.

"We've seen some phenomenal starts. In the Lleyton [Hewitt] era you'd come out swinging and you'd see some really big numbers and it'd sort of peter off a bit.

"Then it started to go a little bit of the reverse as you saw more of the internationals come to the fore and we lost a bit of the Australian flavour.

"This time around, I think we'll probably see the next few nights peaking and I think by the end of the tournament it'll be about the same as last year."