Explained: What is the format of United Cup 2025?

The United Cup 2025 will follow a unique format this year.

The United Cup 2025 will be the third edition of the United Cup, an international outdoor hardcourt mixed-gender team tennis tournament held by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

The squads for the upcoming 2025 Tennis United Cup have been announced. Several prominent names in men’s tennis, including Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, and Novak Djokovic, will be absent from the event. However, 2024 US Open runner-up Taylor Fritz and World No. 2 Alexander Zverev will headline the competition, representing their respective nations.

Meanwhile, WTA top seeds Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, and Elena Rybakina are set to return to action, using the tournament as a crucial opportunity to fine-tune their form ahead of the all-important Australian Open 2025. Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam champion, will aim to lead Poland to victory after finishing as runners-up in the previous edition.

Also Read: United Cup: Full list of title winners

The competition offers both ATP rankings and WTA rankings points to its players: a player will be able to win a maximum of 500 points. A total of 18 countries qualify for the tournament. Five countries are based on the ATP ranking of their No. 1 ranked singles player, Five are based on the WTA ranking of their No. 1 ranked singles player and the final eight are based on the combined ranking of their number one ranked ATP and WTA players.

In exchange for being the host nation, Australia is guaranteed one of the spots reserved for teams with the best combined ranking if it fails to qualify on its own. The United Cup 2024 will have a total prize money pool of US$10,000,000. The distribution will be split into three components: participation fee, match wins, and team wins.

Format for the 2025 United Cup

18 teams will face each other in the competition, including the defending champion Germany and last year’s runner-ups Poland. Apart from these two, inaugural winners Team USA, Spain, Italy, Greece and home country Australia are all expected to put in solid performances.

There is a second qualification phase added for 2025, though. If a new player enters the top 10 (maximum 1 ATP and 1 WTA player), their team, if eligible, will be accepted, with the lowest-ranked existing team making way.

Sydney and Perth have been chosen to host nine teams each. Countries will be placed into six groups of three before facing off in a round-robin format. Each national team can nominate six players from their team – three men and three women.

Teams will compete against the other two nations in their group in a round-robin format. The team with the most wins after all matches are completed will advance to the quarter-finals before the semi-finals and final in Sydney.

The ties are played as best of three matches – a men’s singles, women’s singles, and a mixed doubles rubber.

The competition is set to commence on December 30, between Great Britain and Argentina. The quarter-finals will be held on January 3, the semi-finals on January 4 and the final on January 5.

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