United Cup: Top stars reach Australia for mixed-gender tournament

Perth, Dec 25 (IANS) Kazakhstan will take on Spain in Group C while China will face Brazil in Group E in the first two matches on the opening day of the United Cup, the mixed-gender tennis tournament which will be played concurrently in Perth and Sydney from Friday.

The top season-opening team competition involves 18 teams which have been divided into six groups of three teams each with three groups playing in Perth and the other three in Sydney. The event will involve seven of the world’s Top 10 women and six of the world’s Top 12 men will represent their respective countries in the 2025 United Cup, which will conclude on January 5.

Greece are the third team in Group C while Germany completes the Group E lineup.

Group A comprises the United States, Canada, and Croatia while Group B includes Poland, Czechia, and Norway. Group D will have Italy, France, and Switzerland and will play their matches in Sydney while Great Britain, Australia, and Argentina make up Group F in the prestigious tournament which will start the Australian Open buildup for both men's and women's players.

In the tournament lung-opener, Alexander Shevchenko will start the campaign for Kazakhstan against Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain in the men's singles clash before World No. 6 Elena Rybakina takes on Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the women's singles. The two sets of players will team up in the mixed doubles in case the match ends in a 1-1 tie. Spain are without World No.3 Carlos Alcaraz, who won two Grand Slam titles in 2024.

In the second match of the day on Friday, World No. 5 in WTA Rankings, Qinwen Zheng will start China's campaign against World No. 13 Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil while Zhizhen Zhang will take on Thiago Monteiro in the men's singles clash.

The six group toppers and one second-placed team each from Perth and Sydney will make up the eight teams that will form the quarterfinal line-up for the event.

Meanwhile, the American Top 5 stars Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz have wasted little time getting down to business at the United Cup.

Just a few hours after touching down at Perth Airport, the top seeds practiced together at RAC Arena, in pleasant conditions that were many degrees cooler than Monday’s 42-degree temperatures that scorched the city. Both players are looking to bring their hot late-year form into the new season. Gauff won the WTA Finals in Riyadh; Fritz finished runner-up at the ATP Finals in Turin to finish the year at a career-high World No. 4. in the ATP Rankings.

Fritz was a member of the United States championship team at the inaugural United Cup in 2023, which was played under a different format that featured two men’s singles, two women’s singles, and a mixed doubles. Last year the format changed to one men’s singles, one women’s singles, and a mixed doubles.

“I'm looking forward to it,” Fritz said of the tournament, which begins on Friday. “[The format] has changed a bit over the years; the year that we won, we could use our team's depth a lot more to help us. Now a lot more things can go wrong for the favourite team when it's just one [singles] match each and a deciding mixed doubles. So I'm still excited to play. I'm glad that Coco's here this year.”

Gauff, who starts the year as World No. 3, said: “We're both coming off a good year-end. And it'll be our second time playing together. So hopefully, we can do even better than the Olympics.” The United States will wait until Day 3 on Sunday for their opening match, a blockbuster against Canada that will pit Fritz against Felix Auger-Aliassime and Gauff against former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez. The U.S. will play their second group match against Croatia on Day 5, December 31.

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