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The deadline for players to enter the new “United Cup” was Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET (with the draw scheduled for 10 p.m. Wednesday night ET).
But we can already have a pretty good sense of which teams will be participating.
At his point, barring late changes, it appears Canada will be left on the sidelines.
(UPDATE: The player lists were released ahead of the draw. And Canada, as we projected, wasn’t close to making it).
The rules for qualification for this event are complex, to the point of almost being incomprehensible. And the players have to enter individually, without knowing if they’ll get in, and with the rest of their planned schedule for January kind of hinging on it.
In theory, you would think that the top players for each nation would sort of have a group chat, decide which of them want to play and whether they’ll have enough support on the other side of the tennis line to make their team competitive enough to earn quality prize money and ranking points.
But this being tennis, you can imagine how that would be a rare exception.
As well, there is an additional deadline of Nov. 21 for the final ATP-qualified team, and the final “combined entry” team. Even though they still must have entered by today. They just don’t know if they’ll make it.
Without further ado, here are the confirmed entries as of lunch time, via an Open Court source.
Qualified via their top WTA ranking:
- Poland
- USA
- France
- Switzerland
- Brazil
- Czech Republic
Qualified via their top ATP ranking
- Spain
- Germany
- Greece
- Norway
- Great Britain
- TBD
Qualified via combined rankings
- Italy
- Australia
- Argentina
- Croatia
- Belgium
- TBD
Among those still waiting for confirmation for that final spot (in order of priority) are Kazakhstan, Bulgaria and China.
In many cases, there are far more players entered, than there is room for on the squad (the minimum is three men and three women; they can have up to four men and four women for the format, which has singles, reverse singles and mixed doubles. No regular doubles).
Top 20 players entered – so far
For the men
Rafael Nadal (ESP)(2)
Alexander Zverev (GER)(2-PR)
Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE)(3)
Casper Ruud (NOR)(4)
Taylor Fritz (USA)(9)
Hubert Hurkacz (POL)(11)
Pablo Carreño Busta (ESP)(13)
Cameron Norrie (GBR)(14)
Matteo Berrettini (ITA)(16)
Frances Tiafoe (USA)(19)
For the women
Iga Swiatek (POL)(1)
Jessica Pegula (USA)(3)
Caroline Garcia (FRA)(4)
Maria Sakkari (GRE)(6)
Madison Keys (USA)(11)
Belinda Bencic (SUI)(12)
Paula Badosa (ESP)(13)
Beatriz Haddad Maia (BRA)(15)
Petra Kvitova (CZE)(16)
Jelena Ostapenko (LAT)(18)
So, before the inevitable withdrawals and barring some last-minute entries, half of the top 20 on both the ATP and WTA sides are entered.
Squads vary in quality – tremendously
There are some squads that have reasonable depth all the way through.
Spain tops that list, obviously.Germany also has solid qualifications, as do Italy and Great Britain and Poland. And the USA and Greece. And Australia and France.
Now, here’s the challenge with all this.
You can get your team entered by having one top player – for example, we’re thinking of Norway’s Casper Ruud, whose No. 4 ranking would get his country in.
But there isn’t a single player entered to fill out the Norwegian squad that is in the top 300.
It already seems clear that this would have been a competition best suited for … 12 teams. At most. Which would be able to offer up top-class players on both the men’s and women’s sides.
Too late now.
Norway – or Denmark? Clock is ticking
The next two players on the singles side for Norway would be Viktor Durasovic (No. 333) and the … fabulously named … Andreja Petrovic, who is ranked No. 1264. On the women’s side, Ulrikke Eikeri, who is predominantly a doubles specialist, is the top-ranked singles player at No. 375. The next, Malene Helgo, is at No. 394 and the third, Lilly Haseth, at No. 759.
Greece has two elite players in Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas. But beyond that, we’re talking about Despina Papamichail, Valentini Grammatikopoulou, Michael Pervolarakis and Stefanos Sakellaridis (No. 866).
Denmark has entered. But other than Clara Tauson (No. 128), there is no one on the list in the top 500. And yet, if Holger Rune were to enter before the deadline, they might well get confirmed – and bounce out Norway and Ruud.
Imagine that.
The U.S. has … 19 players entered in all, of which a maximum of eight can be on the squad (even with only six likely seeing action). Beyond Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys, and Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe, there are plenty of players with decent middling doubles rankings (Max Schnur, anyone?).
And of course, Preston Brown, who seemingly enters every possible tournament on the planet, every week, with a doubles ranking of No. 898 (He was later withdrawn, as his ranking was too low for consideration even as a No. 4 player, per the rules).
Yulia Putintseva is entered for Kazakhstan. But the second-best female player on that squad is Zhibek Kulambayeva, ranked No. 438.
Top-20 player Jelena Ostapenko is entered for Latvia. But the top male player is … Ernests Gulbis, currently at No. 310.
Only one player (ranked WTA No. 379 in singles) has entered for Ukraine.
There is a big group of players on this entry list who don’t have the ranking to even think about making the long trek to Australia in January. That’s because there really is no place for them to play, with the level of ATP, WTA and Challenger tournaments on offer having pretty high cutoffs.
For those who will find out … sooner or later … that they won’t make the cut, you certainly hope they have entered tournaments at their level closer to home, as backup.
And what about Canada?
The entry list (again, with a few hours to go), doesn’t get much past Bianca Andreescu and Rebecca Marino. Eugenie Bouchard and Stacey Fung, both ranked outside the top 300 (Bouchard doesn’t appear to have entered with her protected ranking) are also on the list.
Alexis Galarneau (at No. 222) is entered, joined by Steven Diez (No. 339) and Ben Sigouin (No. 1238)
At this point, it doesn’t appear that will be enough to get them in. The only option remaining would be with the “combined” ranking, and there are a half-dozen countries with better numbers ahead of them for that final spot.
Denis Shapovalov – who would have been a difference-maker, appears to have been originally entered. But in the most recent list updated today, he is not.
The money is excellent
The total prize purse for this event is expected to be $15 million US – split evenly between the men and the women, with the maximum number of ranking points available to a player 500.
Top-10 players who would be No. 1 or No. 2 on their teams get a $200,000 guarantee, with those ranked No. 11-20 getting $100.000
After that – not like with the ATP Cup, which was why those ranked outside the top two often took a pass because the money wasn’t there and the guaranteed playing opportunities not there – it drops down.
A top-30 player who is third on their team gets just $30,000
A player outside the top 250 who is the No. 1 player on their team (which can happen if, as in many cases, the “strength” of that squad is skewed to one Tour or another) receives $20,000.. At No. 2, that drops to $10,000.
Each player on the team will receive $5,000 for each match their team wins in the group stages, which inches up as they advance in the event to $23,155 for a win in the finals.
A No. 1 singles player starts with $38,325 for a win in the first pool matches, up to $251,000 for winning a match in the finals. The windfalls for the No. 2 singles player’s match wins range from $25,900 to $169,200. Prize money for mixed doubles ranges from $7,200 per player at the initial stage, to $47,255 for a win in the finals.
Points, too!
The number of points a player earns for winning matches in this event depends highly on the qualify of their opponent.
A top-10 player beating a fellow top-10 player in the final would earn 180 ranking points for that victory. If that top-10 player met a player outside the top 100 in the final, that reward would drop to 40 points.
And so on down the list.
All we can say is that this thing appears to be an absolute maze of unconfirmed player entries, pending team acceptances and a whole lot else.
Add to that that one-third of the teams will have to go all the way to Perth to start play. And, if they progress, go all the way back across the country to Sydney for playoffs. With different conditions and all that goes with that.
But they won’t know in advance.
It’s all coming right down to the last minute. And probably a whole lot of spreadsheets.
Good luck to them.
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What I don’t like about this thing is that there is only one mixed per tie. And when do they play that? After the four singles rubbers? Which would mean that it will be a dead rubber 90% of the time. There should be 2 mixed somehow.
And I was looking forward to Ons Jabeur partnering the mighty Skander Mansouri at 249. I guess Ons figures she sure doesn’t need that. And where is Anett Kontaveit? She could have teamed up with the mighty Mark Lajal at number 448.
Very sad that Felix and Denis are not signed up, don’t they like girls???
Do you ever get tired of spewing such nonsense? My goodness.
WOW!!!!! Just look at this week’s BJK Cup. 2 out of 3 rubbers for the tie. The third rubber is a doubles, bringing it into play often to decide the tie… very entertaining, and giving doubles the respect it deserves. I looked on the United Cup website, and they don’t say anything about the order of matches, so I have to assume the one mxd match will be the fifth and last rubber. This was a very bad system used in Fed Cup where the last match (if they even bothered to play it) often was of no consequence. At least the old Davis Cup was better, putting the sole doubles as the third and only match on day two. People enjoy mixed, so with the WTA/ATP/AO in full cooperation mode it is a shame that there is only one mxd per tie and will almost always be a dead rubber. By the way , I picked up on my speculation about strong players playing with really weak ones of the other sex from the expert… you Steph.
It’s really not about what people “enjoy” (anyway, the top players aren’t likely to play it).
The biggest reason the players are participating in the short Aussie leadup is because they’re offering … RANKING POINTS. Which aren’t available for mixed, obviously. (And money, of course).
When you have four singles you can’t have the mixed … in the middle, or wherever, with singles to follow after. Five matches takes … all day. Players have to hang around all day, pretend to cheer on teammates. It is going to be draining and I suspect that most of the better players are going to try it, but quickliy decide it’s not the optimal use of their AO prep time.
There is almost no interest in this week’s BJK Cup finals. None from the media, poor attendance (even early in in the British “home” group ties). So whether or not doubles is relevant is but a blip in the grand scheme of things. If nobody’s watching or caring, it’s pretty irrelevant.
…and of course… fantastic article like usual….