The IBJJF Sydney Open 2023 took place on April 1st and 2nd, 2023 and the tournament attracted several ADCC trials winners to compete. There was plenty of exciting matches across the event and despite the relatively low turnout, the sport is continuing to grow all across Australia. BJJ is still in early days there compared to North and South America, but with regular IBJJF events and even superfights on shows like Subversion and Battleground Grappling; it has a bright future. Roberto Frias came away with several medals from the event after winning the majority of his matches across both days. He won gold in both the super-heavyweight division and the absolute division in no gi, and won a default gold in his weightclass in the gi along with a bronze medal in that absolute division.
Adele Fornarino solidified herself as one of the top female competitors in the country when she won ADCC trials in 2022, but unfortunately she didn’t get to have many matches at this tournament. There weren’t many women competing at the highest levels of the IBJJF Sydney Open 2023 unfortunately, but she still left the weekend without losing a match and will no doubt be looking to continue that form when she gets the chance to face more opponents in the future.
One of the most impressive performances in the higher belt categories came from Shoya Ishiguro, who also left the event with four medals. Ishiguro competed in the featherweight division and won gold at featherweight in the gi, although he was left without an opponent in no gi as most of his gi division fought a weightclass higher then. Despite being vastly undersized, he also entered the absolute division in both gi and no gi and gave a great account of himself in the process. He shared the third spot on the podium with Frias in the gi absolute division and had an incredibly tough final with him in the no gi absolute, settling for silver there.
