By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY (Reuters) – United Cup tournament director Stephen Farrow is confident the future of the event is rock solid despite the debate over the crowded tennis calendar and Saudi Arabia’s interest in launching an ATP Masters event early in the season.
The $10 million mixed team tournament, the result of a partnership between Tennis Australia and the ATP and WTA tours, kicks off its third edition in Perth on Dec. 27, just 33 days after the Davis Cup finals conclude in Spain.
Farrow has sympathy with players like Carlos Alcaraz who have warned of an increase in injuries and burnout because of the long season but said the field attracted by the United Cup suggested the late December start was not a major issue.
“I think we’d all agree that a longer off-season is a good thing for professional athletes,” he told Reuters at the draw for the tournament.
“(But) the players are desperate to come here as soon as they can and start their season. In the back of my mind I thought starting on Dec. 27, maybe that would be a challenge for us, but it hasn’t proven to be.
“They want to get here to acclimatise to play these big events before the Australian Open.”
Another potential driver to change in the landscape of the game is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is widely reported to have ambitions of owning a 10th ATP Masters tournament to be played before the Australian Open.
That would clearly play havoc with Tennis Australia’s lead-in tournaments to the year’s first Grand Slam, which include the United Cup and WTA-ATP tournaments in Brisbane and Adelaide.
Farrow, though, is confident that the current agreements with the professional tours are built on extremely solid foundations.
“I know those discussions have been going on on the ATP side about a potential event in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“But from our perspective, we have an agreement with the ATP and the WTA which is long term around this event, and the Brisbane International as well. We don’t see any reason why that’s going to change.
“We know we’re running events which players want to play, which fans want to come to watch, which are growing every year, so we’ve got no concerns at all about that leading to the Australian Open.”
Furthermore, Farrow believes Australia will always be the location of choice for players looking to get into shape for Melbourne Park.
“Players want to turn up in Melbourne in absolute peak condition to compete for the Grand Slam,” he added.
“And we’ve worked really hard to make sure that our events before Melbourne are the right events to enable players to do that.”
Tennis Australia’s last major revamp of the pre-Australian Open schedule took place in 2020 but it barely had time to take root before COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the world of sport.
Farrow thinks the bedding in has now taken place in the years since the pandemic abated sufficiently to allow a return to business as usual.
“We’ve got real momentum coming into this year,” he said. “We’re investing, we’ve got high quality events, the players are coming to play and we feel really positive about the situation.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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