Canberra: World no 1 Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal will headline inaugural United Cup as the star-studded field has been named for the annual mixed team event set to be played from December 29 to January 8, 2023.
Entries from the top 16 countries have been announced on Thursday, with Team Greece, led by world No.3 Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari named as the top seeds. Countries were also placed into groups and assigned to host cities.
World No.1 Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz will lead No.2-seeded Poland team, with third seeded United States featuring a wealth of talent, including world No.3 Jessica Pegula, ninth-ranked Taylor Fritz, world No.11 Madison Keys and the charismatic showman, world No.19 Frances Tiafoe.
The legendary Rafael Nadal will team up with world No.13 Paula Badosa to fly the flag for Spain, while emerging tennis powerhouse Italy will star world No.16 Matteo Berrettini and Martina Trevisan.
France rounds out the top six seeds, led by WTA Finals winner and world No.4 Caroline Garcia and Arthur Rinderknech.
Nick Kyrgios, Ajla Tomljanovic and Alex de Minaur will don the green and gold to represent Australia.
Other notable entries include Norway’s world No.4 Casper Ruud, Germany’s Alexander Zverev and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic and Stan Wawrinka, along with Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
The top six WTA ranking-qualified countries, top five ATP ranking-qualified countries and the top five combined entry countries have been admitted to the competition.
The final two remaining countries (one ATP and one combined entry) will be admitted to the competition on November 21, based on the rankings published on this date, acording to ATP tour.
Brisbane, Perth and Sydney will each host two groups of three countries competing in a round-robin format from December 29 to January 4.
Each tie comprises two men’s and two women’s singles matches and one mixed doubles match.
The winners of each group advance to the United Cup Final Four in Sydney to be played from January 6 to 8. The next-best performing team from the group stages will advance as the fourth team.
