The men’s tennis season will start with the inaugural edition of the ATP Cup, an annual 10-day team competition. The first edition will be held from Friday 3 January to Sunday 12 January.
Twenty-four national teams are divided into six round robin groups of four. The six winners of each group and the two best second best placed finishers will advance to the knock-out stage. Each tie will feature two singles and one doubles match. Singles matches will be best of three tie-break sets. Doubles matches will feature No-ad scoring and a match tie-break instead of a third set.
There are a maximum of 750 points at stake and a maximum of 250 ATP Doubles Ranking points available.
The group stages competition will be staged across three Australian venues: the Queensland Tennis Centre in Brisbane, the RAC Arena in Perth and the Ken Rosewall in Sydney. The Final Eight will be held at the Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney.
Serbia has been drawn in Group A against France, Chile and South Africa. The Group A will be staged in Brisbane. The Serbian team is led by world number 2 and 2019 Australian Open and Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic and also features world number 34 and 2019 Monte-Carlo finalist Dusan Lajovic, Viktor Troicki, Nikola Milojevic and Nikola Cacic. The Serbian team captain is Nenad Zimonjic. Djokovic won his seventh Australian Open title last January beating Rafael Nadal in the final and clinched another Grand Slam title at Wimbledon after saving two match points against Roger Federer in the final and two Masters 1000 titles in Madrid and Paris Bercy.
France will pose the most serious threat to Serbia in Group A. World Number 10 Gael Monfils leads a strong French team, which features three singles players, who have reached the top 20 in the ATP Ranking during their careers (Monfils, Benoit Paire and Gilles Simon) and two doubles specialists Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger Vasselin, who have won a total of 48 ATP Tour-level titles (including seven as a team). Monfils returned to the top 10 during the 2019 season after winning a title in Rotterdam and reaching the semifinal in Montreal. Paire returned to the top 25 after winning two ATP 250 titles in Marrakesh and Lyon.
Chile is led by 23-year-old player Christian Garin, who won two titles in Houston and Munich, and Nicolas Jarry, who won his maiden ATP title in Bastad. Jarry will follow in the footsteps of his grandfather Jaime Fillol, who took part in the former World Team Cup.
Former Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson and 22-year-old player Lloyd Harris (first time semifinalist on the ATP Tour in Chengdu) will carry the South African hopes. Anderson will play in his first event since Wimbledon.
Perth will host Group B, which features Spain, Japan, Uruguay and Georgia. Spain is favourite to win another major team title after clinching the Davis Cup Trophy in Madrid last November. Twelve-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal and Roberto Bautista Agut will lead a strong Spanish team. Nadal won Roland Garros, the US Open and two Masters 1000 titles in Rome and Montreal and finished the 2019 season as year-end player for the fifth time in his career. Bautista Agut won the ATP 250 title in Doha and reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon reaching his career-high ATP Ranking of world number 9. The Spanish team is completed by Pablo Carreno Busta, who won the Chengdu title last September, and veteran Feliciano Lopez, who lifted the Queen’s title last June, and Albert Ramos Vinolas. Who reached a career-high ranking of world number 17 and ended the 2019 season ranked world number 41.
Japan will not feature Kei Nishikori, who has pulled out of the ATP Cup and the Australian Open. Nishikori underwent right elbow surgery last October. Yoshihito Nishioka will replace Nishikori as the top-ranked player in the Japanese team, which also includes veteran Go Soeda and four-time doubles champion Ben McLachlan and Toshihide Matsui.
The Uruguayan team is led by six-time ATP Tour singles champion Pablo Cuevas, who reached the final in Estoril.
Three-time ATP Tour champion Nikoloz Basilashvili will lead Georgia. This year the Georgian player beat Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev en route to winning his second consecutive title in Hamburg last July. Basilashvili won two more titles in Hamburg and Beijing in 2018.
Great Britain will face Belgium, Bulgaria and Moldova in Sydney. Andy Murray has pulled out from the ATP Cup and the Australian Open due to a recent injury setback. The British hopes will be carried by Daniel Evans and Cameron Norrie in singles and doubles specialists Jamie Murray and Joe Salisbury. James Ward will replace Andy Murray. The British team is captain by Tim Henman.
Former ATP Finals runner David Goffin will lead Belgium, that also features Davis Cup veteran and two-time ATP Tour champion Steve Darcis and doubles specialists Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen, who won three doubles titles in Bastad, Gstaad and Zhuhai. Goffin will face Moldova’s Radu Albot in Belgium’s first match on Friday 3 January at 10 am local time in Sydney.
Grigor Dimitrov, who beat Goffin at the ATP Finals in London 2017, will act as captain and player in the Bulgarian team. Dimitrov reached the semifinals at the US Open and at the Paris Bercy Masters 1000 in 2019. The other members of the Bulgarian team are Dimitar Kuzmanov, Alexandar Lazarov, Alexander Donski and Andrei Andreev.
World number 12 and 2019 Monte-Carlo champion Fabio Fognini will lead the Italian team, which also features Stefano Travaglia, former top 10 doubles specialist and former Australian Open doubles champion Simone Bolelli, Paolo Lorenzi and Alessandro Giannessi. Italy will face a very strong challenge against Russia, the United States and Norway in Group D in Perth.
The Russian team captained by former Grand Slam champion Marat Safin will be among the favourites as it will be headlined by Danil Medvedev and Karen Khachanov. Medvedev reached the US Open final and won four ATP titles in Sofia, Cincinnati, St. Petersburg and Shanghai. Khachanov won his maiden Masters 1000 title in 2018 in Paris Bercy and reached the semifinal at Montreal Masters 1000 and in Beijing in 2019. They will be joined by Teymuraz Gabashvili, Ivan Nedelko and Konstantin Kravchuk.
The United States will be led by John Isner, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Rajeev Ram and Austin Kraijeck. Twenty-one year-old Casper Ruud will be the stand-out name in the Norwegian team. Ruud is the highest ranked Norwegian player since his father Christian and reached the Houston final and two more semifinals in Sao Paulo and Kitzbuhel. He beat Matteo Berrettini scoring the biggest win of his career in Roland Garros second round.
Sydney will host Group E which includes Argentina, Croatia, Austria and Poland. Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman earned four top 10 wins and won the third title of his career in Los Cabos and saved a match point to reach the final in Buenos Aires. He was beaten by Thiem in the Vienna final. He also reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal in Rome and equaled the biggest win of his career by beating Alexander Zverev to reach his third Grand Slam quarter final at the US Open before losing to eventual champion Rafael Nadal. Schwartzman is joined by Guido Pella, who reached his career-high ATP Ranking of world number 20, this year’s Cordoba champion Juan Ignacio Londero, and doubles champion Maximo Gonzales and Andres Molteni.
Schwartzman will face Dominic Thiem in a re-match of the Vienna final on Monday 6 January. Thiem will be joined by his childhood friend Dennis Novak, Sebastian Ofner and doubles specialist Oliver Marach and Jurgen Melzer, who clinched a total of 39 doubles titles between them. Poland will feature number 1 singles player Hubert Hurkacz, who qualified for the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, and former doubles number 1 Lukasz Kubot.
Borna Coric and former world number 3 and 2014 Australian Open champion Marin Cilic lead Croatia and strong doubles specialists Ivan Dodig and Ivan Mektic will form a strong Croatian team.
Home team Australia will take on Canada, Germany and Greece in Group F at the Pat Rafter Arena in Brisbane. This group will be highlighted by many young stars. Australia will be led by two-time Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up Alex De Minaur, Nick Kyrgios, John Millman and doubles champions John Peers and Chris Guccione.
The headline name in the German team is Alexander Zverev, who reached the semifinals at the 2019 ATP Finals in London. The other top names are world number 35 Jan Lennard Struff and doubles specialists Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies, who won the 2019 Roland Garros.
The Canadian team will be a mix of youth and experience with Next Gen stars Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger Aliassime and veterans Peter Polansky, Adil Shamasdin and Steven Diez. Canada lost the Davis Cup final against Spain in Madrid last November.
Reigning ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas will lead Greece, the youngest team in Brisbane. The Tsitsipas family will be also represented by team captain Apostolos (the father of Stefanos) and Petros (Stefanos’ younger brother). Twenty-five year-old Markos Kalovelonis is the oldest member of the Greek team.
