ATP Cup

Overview

The ATP Cup is an annual 24-country team competition featuring AU$22 million US$15 million prize money and a maximum of 750 singles and 250 doubles ATP Rankings points. ATP is staging the event in partnership with Tennis Australia.

The ATP Cup will begin the ATP Tour each season, starting on the Friday before Week 1. The tournament will be a 10-day event finishing on the final Sunday of Week 1. The ATP Cup will be played alongside an ATP 250 event in Doha that will occupy Week 1 of the calendar. The group stages competition will be hosted across three Australian cities - Brisbane, Perth and Sydney - over six days. Immediately following the group stages will be the Final Eight knockout stage – played over four days at Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney.

Format

24 teams are divided into six groups of four for group stage, round robin play. The six winners of each group and the two best second-placed finishers across the groups emerge to contest:-

knockout stages

• Final Eight

• Quarter-Finals

• Semi Finals

• Final

Each tie will comprise two singles and one doubles match. The country winning two matches wins the tie. Every country will be guaranteed to play three ties in the group stages. Singles will be best-of-three tie-break sets. Doubles will feature No-Ad scoring and a Match Tie-break in lieu of a third set.

There is a day session and an evening session each day per venue. The first singles matches will be played at 10am local time, starting with the No. 2 players in each tie, followed by the No. 1 players, with the doubles to follow. All doubles matches will be played regardless of whether the tie is decided after the two singles matches.

Qualification

A minimum of three ATP ranked players, including two members with singles ATP Ranking points, are required for a country to be eligible to qualify. A country may have up to five players. If a team has five players, at least three must have an ATP Singles ranking. If less than five players, a team must have at least two players with an ATP Singles ranking.

At the first entry deadline, the Top 18 countries in the ATP Cup Standings gained acceptance into the event based on the singles ATP Ranking of the country’s No. 1 singles player. The qualifying country’s second-highest-ranked singles player gained acceptance at the same time. Because it was not among the Top 18 teams, host country Australia was granted a wild card into the event. If either of the two accepted singles players drop outside their country’s top two ranked singles players at the second entry deadline, either player may withdraw from the event. Remaining team members (up to an additional three players) will gain acceptance at the second entry deadline, based on the current ATP Rankings.

Rankings to be used for entries are the 52-week ATP Rankings. A Protected Ranking can be used to enter provided the player’s Protected Ranking is valid through the entry deadline for which he is eligible. Protected Ranking will not be used for team seeding.

At the second entry deadline, the remaining five countries (Nos. 20-24) will qualify and all qualified players from all teams will be committed.

A player who changes nationality after the entry deadline will not be eligible to play for his new country in the current year. A player may only play ATP Cup for one country during his career.