The most awaited Tennis Season begins with ATP Cup!
Finally, the wait for the new season of Tennis ends! The inaugural ATP Cup starts from January 3, 2020. In this, 24 countries would be competing across 3 cities of Australia. The finals will be held at Sydney on 12 January,2020. Format of the Tournament The teams are divided into 6 groups, 4 teams in each group. Each team in a group plays 3 round robin ties. The ties are best of three sets matches, consisting of 2 singles matches and 1 doubles match. The six group winners will progress to the quarterfinals. The rest two quarterfinals spot will be occupied by the best 2 runners-up teams across all groups. This is followed by semi-finals and Final. The Prize money for this event is as high as 22m Australian dollars and a singles player can win as many as 750 ATP singles ranking points. This means, the race for the year-end ATP World Tour Championship also begins here. The Event would also see 9 of the top-10 singles players competing in the event. Roger Federer has withdrawn from this event to spend quality time with his family. Probable Quarter-finalists Group-A: This group comprises of Serbia, France, South Africa and Chile. Novak Djokovic and Dusan Lajovic would like to finish at the top, but France’s Gael Monfils and Benoit Paire would challenge them. Kevin Anderson and Nicolas Jarry will be the lead players from their respective sides and would be looking to spring surprises. Serbia and France are favorites to finish top 2. Group-B: This group comprises of Spain, Japan, Uruguay and Georgia. The Spanish team comprising of Rafael Nadal and Roberto Bautista Agut are firm favorites here and would finish as top team. The other teams might not even make the quarterfinals. Group-C: One of the competitive groups of the tournament comprising of Britain, Belgium, Bulgaria and Moldova. Grigor Dimitrov, David Goffin, Dan Evans in this group can result in some exciting singles matches. Britain is expected to finish at top. Group-D: This group comprises of Russia, Norway, Italy and US. The Russian team comprising of Next-Gens Daniel Medvedev and Karen Kachanov are expected to finish at top. But with Isner, Reilly Opelka and Taylor Fritz, the US team could challenge them. Russia and US are favorites to finish top 2 and make the quarterfinals. Group-E: This group comprises of Austria, Poland, Argentina and Croatia. Dominic thiem, the man in form would like to lead his team to top but he would be facing tough challenge from Croatia’s Marian Cilic, Borna Coric and Argentina’s Guido Pella and Schwartzman. Croatia might just make it to the top Group-F: The group to watch out for, or the so-called group of death comprising of Germany, Greece, Canada and Australia. Greece has the ATP World Tour Singles Champion Stefanos Tsitsipas but absence of another quality players makes it unlikely to reach quarters. Australia team looks promising with Nick Kyrgios, Alex de-minaur but a lot would depend on the form of Kyrgios. Germany’s Alexander Zverev and Jan-Lennard Struff are likely to top the group. The Canadia team of Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime are also expected to enter quarters as one of the best 2 runners-up team. Since each tie consists of 2 Singles matches, we can expect one of the teams among Spain, Russia, Germany, Canada to win the championship as they have 2 quality singles players. As per Sportzian’s Analysis, Spain is expected be the inaugural ATP Cup Champions!