By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
There has been much concern about the future of the Hopman Cup competition, the official mixed team competition of the International Tennis Federation, with the threat of the coming 2020 debut of the new ATP Cup men’s team event.
The ATP Cup will be comprised of 24 teams playing matches over 10 days in three Australian cities (Brisbane, Sydney and a third TBD city) that consist of two singles matches and a doubles match. Each team will have between two and five players. The ATP Cup has the potential to deflate the talent pool of men’s players who could play in the Hopman Cup.
The Hopman Cup features eight teams comprising of one woman and one man player from each respective country. Each player competes in one singles match each and then play a mixed doubles match. There are eight teams with two flights of four teams. The winning team from each flight plays in a championship match. In 2019, the teams were as follows: Germany, Australia, Spain, France, Switzerland, USA, Great Britain and Greece.
The thing about the Hopman Cup and its survival is that, even with the increased competition for men’s players competing in the ATP Cup, it only needs eight viable men’s players to continue to be a successful and interesting event. And, at closer look, this should not be a problem.
As you scroll and analyze the top 100 ATP singles rankings, you could determine that the following teams could be the 24 teams that would compete in the ATP Cup, with the top three players from each team representing that team: Serbia, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Austria, Japan, USA, Russia, Croatia, Italy, Great Britain, Canada, Bulgaria, South Korea, France, Australia, Hungary, Slovaka, Chile Portugal, Bosnia, Netherlands, Kazakhstan (alternates/back-ups Czech Republic and Romania)
After this potential compilation of competing players from these nations, who is left? For starters, since each ATP Cup team will likely only have a maximum of three singles players, there are several “power nations” with multiple top male players who can still compete at the Hopman Cup.
For example, Spain with nine players in the top 100, starting with Rafael Nadal, Roberto Baustista Agut, Pablo Carreno Busta, Fernando Verdasco, Feliciano Lopez, Albert Vinolas and others who could pair with Garbine Muguruza or Carla Suarez Navarro to create an attractive Hopman Cup team. Germany has six men in the top 100 – led by Alexander Zverev, his brother Mischa and Philipp Kohlschreiber – who could pair with Angie Kerber or Julia Georges or Andrea Petkovic in the Hopman Cup. The United States has 10 Americans in the top 10 and players like John Isner, Stevie Johnson, Francis Tiafoe, Sam Querrey, Taylor Fritz or others could pair with Serena Williams or Madison Keys or Sloane Stephens or Coco Vandeweghe.
Host Australia should have no problem fielding a team with six players ranked in the top 100 of the ATP rankings, Matt Ebden, the Australian No. 3 paired with Ash Barty in 2019. France has nine players ranked in the top 100. With many of the players being vocally against the re-formatted team competitions in tennis, the Hopman Cup could be attractive alternative to the ATP Cup for players like Lucas Pouille, Richard Gasquet, Gael Monfils, Gilles Simon and Jeremy Chardy. Pouille and Alize Cornet played for France in Perth in 2019. Great Britain is one of the world’s leading tennis nations and while they only have two players in the top 100 – Kyle Edmund and Cam Norrie (who played the Hopman Cup in 2019 with No. 99-ranked Katie Boulter) – they have a deep pool of eight players in the top 300.
That’s six pretty viable attractive potential teams – all of which competed in 2019. The seventh team that competed in 2019 was, of course, Switzerland which won the event behind Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic. Who knows how much longer Federer will be competing and it’s not clear if he will compete in the ATP Cup, but it seems unlikely based on him cutting back on the number of events and matches he plays in his late 30s. The same can be said for fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka, who is also in his 30s and still playing on a ginger knee. At least for the short term, Federer, Wawrinka or even Swiss No. 3 Henri Laaksonsen (ranked No. 166) could compete in Perth alongside Bencic or Stefanie Voegle or former French Open semifinalist Timea Bacsinszky. With only Federer, Wawrinka and Laaksonsen being the only Swiss men ranked in the top 350, it’s unlikely they would compete in the ATP Cup unless all three commit to the event. This makes the less strenuous Hopman Cup appearance more likely.
There are several high profile ATP players who are singular top flag bearers for their nation in international tennis and also would thus not be able to play in the ATP Cup since they do not have at least one viable player to compete with. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece is the prime example as he is the only player from his nation with an ATP ranking. Tsitsipas and his fellow Greek Maria Sakkari comprised of the eighth and final other team at the Hopman Cup in 2019. Until one or more Greek players emerge, the Hopman Cup would be a great option for Tsitsipas.
It is interesting to note that the singles rankings of the eight men who played Hopman Cup in 2019 were as follows: Roger Federer – No. 3, Alexander Zverev No. 4, Stefanos Tsitsipas – No. 15, Lucas Pouille – No. 30, Frances Tiafoe – No. 39, Matt Ebden – No. 47, Cam Norrie – No. 94 and David Ferrer – No. 124.
Kevin Anderson of South Africa only has one other countryman ranked in singles with Lloyd Harris at No. 119, but the highest ranked South African woman is No. 482 Chanel Simmons, so it is doubtful he would play in Perth. Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria is a top-flight player but you have to go all the way down to No. 328-ranked Dimitrar Kuzmanov to find the No. 2 of three ATP-ranked players from Bulgaria. The top Bulgarian woman player is No. 151 Viktoriya Tomova, followed by No. 215 Elitsa Kostova and No. 231 Sesil Karatantcheva, a former French Open quarterfinalist.
The nation of Georgia only has one ATP-ranked player Nokoloz Basilashvili at No. 26. The top WTA player from Georgia is No. 164 Ekaterine Gorgodze. Hungary’s top man Marton Fuscovics is ranked No. 35 but there is no other player from his country ranked in the top 250. He could be paired with No. 65 Timea Babos or No. 124 Fanny Stollar of the WTA at the Hopman Cup.
Former French Open semifinalist Ernests Gulbis of Latvia only has one other ATP ranked player from his country and he would make an entertaining Hopman Cup pairing with either countrywomen Anastasija Sevastova and Jelena Ostapenko.
Canada has three players in the top 100 – Milos Raonic, Denis Shapovalov and Vasek Pospisil – but also some viable top 200 players Felix Auger-Aliassime, Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur who could make up an attractive Hopman Cup pairing with Canada’s WTA star Genie Bouchard if they chose to not play ATP Cup or do not qualify for the team.
In a pinch, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark could also be paired with a top 400 ranked Danish ATP counterpart and Elina Svitolina or Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine could play with former top 100 players Alexander Dolgopolov or Ilya Marchenko or, in a curious longshot Sergiy Stakhovskiy. Could Naomi Osaka of Japan pair with one of one of eight Japanese men players ranked in the top 200 of the ATP rankings who are not playing in the ATP Cup? How about one of the four top 100 WTA players from China playing with one of the 12 Chinese ATP-ranked men? Vika Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus could also pair with one of five lesser-known ATP ranked players from Belarus. If Romania cannot field an ATP Cup team, could Marcus Copil pair with Simona Halep in Perth? How about Tomas Berdych or Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic if their rankings do not improve pairing with Petra Kvitova or Karolina Pliskova? Kiki Bertens and Robin Haase of the Netherlands could also be a potential pair.
By now, you get the point. The Hopman Cup recruiters still have a lot of attractive options to pursue, even with the lesser pool of players to choose from. The other factor to consider is that there will also be a 32-draw ATP singles event in either Doha, Qatar or Pune, India held during this week and some men may prefer to play this than the Hopman Cup or the ATP Cup.
