The Association of Tennis Professionals, popularly known as ATP, worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men gets underway this year from Tuesday, February 2, at the Melbourne Park in Australia. The ATP Cup 2021 is a 12-nation tournament with three teams divided into four groups. For this year’s edition, the host nation Australia come in as wildcards. The much-touted competition was initially proposed to feature 24 teams and played across three cities -Brisbane, Perth and Sydney - at the start of January. But due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic situation, the event has been reduced to 12 teams and all the matches will be played out from a single venue. The crowd attendance has also been capped at 25 percent.
The ATP Cup 2021 will see defending champion Serbia led by Novak Djokovic in Melbourne, while record Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal will lead the Spanish side, who were runners-up last year. The opening Group A fixture will see a mouth-watering match between defending champion Djokovic squaring off against Canada's Denis Shapovalov at Rod Laver Arena, in Melbourne. However, the group stages will be played from February 2-4, the semi-finals are scheduled for February 5 and culminating with the final scheduled on Saturday, February 6.
ATP Cup 2021 format
The participating 12 teams have been divided into three groups and each group will play each other in a round-robin format, with the four group winners progressing to the semi-finals. Each tie between countries will be decided by two single matches and a doubles contest. Both the matches will be a best-of-three sets matches.
In a slight shift in rules, there will be ‘No-Ad’ scoring, which means that in case of deuce, the pair winning the next point wins the game. ATP, which is also the governing body for men’s tennis, players will get to earn ranking points for their matches. A singles player, if gone undefeated, shall earn a maximum of 500 points, while it is 250 in case of doubles.
ATP Cup 2021 Draw
- Group A: Serbia, Germany, Canada
- Group B: Spain, Greece, Australia
- Group C: Austria, Italy, France
- Group D: Russia, Argentina, Japan
ATP Cup 2021 schedule
The morning session starts at 04:30 am and the evening session starts at 12:00 pm, IST.
Day 1
Morning session: Serbia vs Canada (Group A), Austria vs Italy (Group C)
Evening session: Spain vs Australia (Group B), Russia vs Argentina (Group D)
Day 2
Morning session: Germany vs Canada (Group A), Italy vs France (Group C)
Evening session: Greece vs Australia (Group B), Russia vs Japan (Group D)
Day 3
Morning session: Serbia vs Germany (Group A), Austria vs France (Group C)
Evening session: Spain vs Greece (Group B), Argentina vs Japan (Group D)
ATP Cup 2021 Players
Argentina: Diego Schwartzman (C), Guido Pella, Horacio Zeballos, Maximo Gonzalez
Australia: Alex de Minaur, John Millman, John Peers, Luke Saville, Lleyton Hewitt (non-playing captain)
Austria: Dominic Thiem, Dennis Novak, Philipp Oswald, Tristan-Samuel Weissborn, Wolfgang Thiem (non-playing captain)
Canada: Denis Shapovalov, Milos Raonic, Steven Diez, Peter Polansky (c)
France: Gael Monfils, Benoit Paire, Nicolas Mahut, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Richard Ruckelshausen (non-playing captain)
Germany: Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lennard Struff, Kevin Krawietz, Andreas Mies, Mischa Zverev (non-playing captain)
Greece: Stefanos Tsitsipas, Michail Pervolarakis, Markos Kalovelonis, Petros Tsitsipas, Apostolos Tsistipas (non-playing captain)
Italy: Matteo Berrettini, Fabio Fognini, Simone Bolleli, Andrea Vavassori, Vincenzo Santopadre (non-playing captain)
Japan: Kei Nishikori, Yoshihito Nishioka, Ben McLachlan, Toshihide Matsui, Max Mirnyi (non-playing captain)
Russia: Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Aslan Karatsev, Evgeny Donskoy (c)
Serbia: Novak Djokovic, Dušan Lajović, Filip Krajinović, Nikola Ćaćić, Viktor Troicki (non-playing captain)
Spain: Rafael Nadal, Roberto Bautista Agut, Pablo Carreno Busta, Marcel Granollers, Pepe Vendrell (non-playing captain)
Where to watch ATP Cup live in India?
The 2021 ATP Cup will be telecast live on the Eurosport and Eurosport HD TV channels in India, while the live streaming will be available on TennisTV, which is subscription-based.