Following the release of the 2024 United Cup draw and schedule, here’s what fans on the west coast can look forward to from the group stages, where top seeds Poland, a Novak Djokovic-led Serbia and a stacked group featuring hosts Australia are on offer.
For the third time in a career that knows no limits, world No.1 Djokovic reached all four major finals in 2023, winning three of them, including a 10th Australian Open.
The relentless 36-year-old will return to Perth for the first time since 2013 when he leads Serbia against the Czech Republic and China in Group E.
Not since the fourth round at Melbourne Park in 2018 has he lost a match on Australian soil.
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After opening 2023 with titles at the Adelaide International – saving championship point against Sebastian Korda – and at Melbourne Park, he looks to extend his winning streak in Australia to 41 matches when he hits the court at RAC Arena for his first respective meetings with Jiri Lehecka and Zhang Zhizhen.
Djokovic has also not lost a match anywhere since the Wimbledon final, scooping titles at Cincinnati, the US Open and Paris. He is unbeaten in his past 18 matches, a streak he’ll hope to grow at next week’s ATP Finals in Turin.
Iga Swiatek is the second multi-Slam-winning star to begin their United Cup campaign in Perth.
The 22-year-old added a third Roland Garros crown to her tally in 2023 to sit alongside her 2022 US Open trophy and has already picked up five more titles along the way.
The most recent of those was the prestigious WTA Finals, a tournament she dominated to wrest the world No.1 ranking back from Aryna Sabalenka and end the season in top spot.
The Pole reprises her United Cup 2023 partnership with Hubert Hurkacz as top seeds against Spain and final team to be announced on November 20 in Group A. The pair carried Poland to the semifinals on debut.
READ MORE: Swiatek, Hurkacz to combine again for Poland
Hurkacz enjoyed a late-season surge and very nearly qualified for the ATP Finals in Turin, following a second Masters 1000 title in Shanghai last month, in which he saved championship points against Andrey Rublev.
Swiatek holds a 2-0 record against Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo while Hurkacz looks to level the ledger at 3-3 against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who upset him at Wimbledon in 2022.
Arguably the toughest of the six groups at this year’s United Cup features host nation Australia against defending champion the United States, and Great Britain.
Alex de Minaur thrives competing on home soil and will bring RAC Arena to life when he squares off against world No.10 Taylor Fritz and No.18 Cameron Norrie in Group B.
The world No.13 boasts winning head-to-heads against his two group-stage foes – 4-3 against Fritz and 2-1 against Norrie – including beating both en route to his maiden Masters 1000 final in Toronto in August.
Ajla Tomljanovic missed her 2023 United Cup debut due to a knee injury and hopes to gather much-needed momentum in matches against world No.5 Jessica Pegula and world No.53 Katie Boulter. She has never lost to the American in two prior meetings or the Briton in their previous encounter.
Should Australia’s tie against Great Britain come down to a live mixed doubles, it could see De Minaur and Boulter casting aside their off-court alliance for national allegiance.
No fewer than nine Grand Slam champions will join the field in Perth. Czech lefty Marketa Vondrousova is one of three who has triumphed in singles.
The 24-year-old first hit the radar when she fell to Ash Barty in the 2019 Roland Garros final before injuries largely derailed her progress.
That was until 2023, when she became the first unseeded woman to win the Wimbledon singles trophy when she denied Ons Jabeur in the final.
It will be Vondrousova’s United Cup debut when she teams up with one of the rising names in men’s tennis, Jiri Lehecka.
The clean-striking Lehecka made his debut in last year’s event as the world No.74. Less than 12 months on, the 21-year-old has cracked the top 30.
His standout run came on debut at Melbourne Park in January when he toppled then-No.7 Felix Auger-Aliassime en route to the quarterfinals.
For years Chinese women have outshone their male counterparts on tour. Now there is genuine cause for optimism that China’s men could also be a force at the top of the sport.
Zhang Zhizhen became the first Masters 1000 quarterfinalist from China at Madrid in May, and the powerful 27-year-old’s win over Casper Ruud at the US Open made him the first Chinese man to down a top-five opponent.
In October, he landed China’s first men’s singles gold medal in nearly three decades at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
His United Cup teammate, Zheng Qinwen, also scooped Asian Games singles gold, another highlight in a season that has already included a top-20 debut following titles in Palermo and on home soil in Zhengzhou.
The exciting 21-year-old downed Jabeur to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final in New York in September, and concluded the season by reaching the WTA Elite Trophy final in Zhuhai.
She currently sits at a career-high ranking of 15th, with some experts predicting even bigger things for her in 2024.
