USA's Coo Gauff and Taylor Fritz in action. (PHOTO: FILE/REUTERS)
Third-ranked Coco Gauff will be joined by sixth-ranked Taylor Fritz as the United States are set to defend its title at the United Cup next week in Australia.
United Cup is the only combined ATP and WTA team and it will kick off the 2026 tennis season on the 2nd January. The tournament will be played in two cities: Perth and Sydney, with three groups playing their matches in Perth and three in Sydney.
The tournament will give several of the world’s top players preparation matches ahead of the first major of the year, the Australian Open, which gets underway on 18th January in Melbourne.
Eighteen teams will be part of the tournament with each team having one ATP and WTA player each. The teams are grouped in six three-team pools that will compete in round-robin format.
The top team from each group along with the best runner-up will advance to the quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals will take place in Sydney on 10th and 11th January.
All competition will take place on hard courts.
Every tie will consist of three matches: an ATP match, a WTA match and a mixed-doubles match.
In 2025 edition of the tournament, Gauff and Fritz lead U.S. to a title defeating Poland 2-0 in the final.
They also won the inaugural 2023 event, sweeping Italy 4-0 in a title match using a different format. Germany beat Poland 2-1 for the 2024 championship.
Poland will be a strong competitor with No. 2 Iga Swiatek and No. 73 Hubert Hurkacz (a former top-10 player) featuring. The United States team will compete in Group A in Perth against Argentina on Jan. 3 and against Spain on January 5.
Group A, Perth: United States, Spain, Argentina Group B, Sydney: Canada, Belgium, China Group C, Perth: Italy, France, Switzerland Group D, Sydney: Australia, Czechia, Norway Group E, Perth: Great Britain, Greece, Japan Group F, Sydney: Germany, Poland, Netherlands