This year’s Davis Cup champion Andy Murray and 2015 Grand Slam winner Serena Williams will headline the 2016 Hopman Cup in Perth.
Eight national teams divided in two groups will contest the 2016 edition of the traditional tournament which starts the international tennis season. This year the Hopman Cup will take place from 3rd to 9th January.
The A Group will feature Australia Gold (Lleyton Hewitt and Jarmila Gajdosova), Czech Republic (Karolina Pliskova who will replace Lucie Safarova and Jiri Vesely), Ukraine (Elina Svitolina, Alexander Dolgopolov), United States (Serena Williams and Jack Sock).
The B Group will feature Australia Green (Daria Gavrilova and Nick Kyrgios), France (Caroline Garcia and Gael Monfils), Germany (Sabine Lisicki and Alexander Zverev) and Great Britain (Andy Murray and Heather Watson).
The latest addition to the line.up is Karolina Pliskova, who won the Fed Cup for Czech Republic and the Prague WTA Tournament and reached the finals in Sydney, Dubai, Birmingham, Stanford and Zhuhai.
“We wish Lucie Safarova all the best with her recovery over the coming weeks and hope her on court in Australia soon. We welcome Karolina Pliskova to Perth for the first time and look forward to watching her and Jiri Vesely make the debut at the Perth Arena for Czech Republic”, said Hopman Cup Tournament Director Paul Kilderry.
The Hopman Cup is named in honour of Harry Hopman, an Australian tennis player and coach who guided Australia to 16 Davis Cup titles between 1939 and 1967. In 1984 Australian players Paul McNamee, Charlie Fancutt and Pat Cash came up to the idea to create a team competition to honour Harry Hopman. The first edition was held in 1989 and was won by a team from Czechoslovakia formed by Helena Sukova and Miroslav Mecir.
