The 2026 tennis season begins with the United Cup, which starts on Friday. 18 teams from six different teams compete in Sydney and Perth before the semi finals in Sydney on the weekend of January 10-11. The winners of the six teams and the runner-up with the best record in each of the two regions will advance to the round robin and advance to the quarterfinals.
Defending champion United States and trailing Poland are both running with their same teams – Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff for the Americans; Hubert Hurkacz and Iga Swiatek from Poles. They are certainly among the title contenders again, although they will be challenged by a strong field that includes Italy (Flavio Cobolli, Jasmine Paolini), Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas, Maria Sakkari), Canada (Felix Auger-Aliassime, Victoria Mboko), and Czechia (Jakub Mensik, Barbora Krejcikova).
Teams and team lists:
Group A
United States (Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff)
Spain (Jaume Munar and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro)
Argentina (Sebastian Baez and Solana Sierra)
Group B
Canada (Felix Auger-Aliassime and Victoria Mboko)
Belgium (Zizou Bergs and Elise Mertens)
China (Zhizhen Zhang and Lin Zhu)
Group C
Italy (Flavio Cobolli and Jasmine Paolini)
France (Arthur Rinderknech and Leola Jeanjean)
Switzerland (Stan Wawrinka and Belinda Bencic)
Group D
Australia (Alex de Minaur and Maya Joint)
Czechia (Jakub Mensik and Barbora Krejcikova)
Norway (Casper Ruud and Malene Helgo)
Group E
Great Britain (Billy Harris and Emma Raducanu)
Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari)
Japan (Shintaro Mochizuki and Naomi Osaka)
Group F
Germany (Alexander Zverev and Eva Lys)
Poland (Hubert Hurkacz and Iga Swiatek)
The Netherlands (Tallon Griekspoor and Suzan Lamens)
Selection:
The final: United States over Japan, Poland over Australia, Italy over Greece, and Canada over Belgium
Semi-finalist: United States over Poland and Italy over Canada
Finally: United States over Italy
