How United Cup can become the one thing that tennis has been crying out for

United Cup Tournament Director Stephen Farrow alongside Alex de Minaur. (Getty/Brett Hemmings)

The United Cup is a tournament that has gotten better and better every year. From the somewhat wonky format of the first year, with sporadic attendance, to the most recent year, when Poland clinched the title in front of a packed crowd against Switzerland, the tournament really feels like it has come into its own under the watchful eye of Tournament Director Stephen Farrow.

Farrow, who was previously the tournament director of Queens, has been somewhat of a visionary in the administration space, unafraid to challenge the status quo and reinvent as appropriate, while maintaining strong relationships with players, which has resulted in an ever-improving entry list for the United Cup.

With the role of CEO at Tennis Australia soon to be vacant, Farrow would, without question, be an inspired choice for the role (and certainly seems to be in active consideration), given his ability to revive what is a very difficult tournament for Tennis Australia to pull off. Clashing with the SCG test in Sydney and being played across two cities five hours apart, it is very difficult to draw interest, but Farrow and his team have done a great job of continually improving the tournament and its reach.

"We've had growth in all the metrics that we measure and lots of positive things in terms of attendance. In Perth, attendance is up 10 per cent. I think we're going to be somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent up in terms of attendance here in Sydney," said Farrow when speaking to The First Serve during the summer of tennis.

"I think we've yet again had a really great player field with some really amazing teams and some really amazing tennis. And from a broadcast perspective, this year we're broadcasting in 199 countries; last year it was 183. So I think about all these things, which are really important in terms of measuring the growth of the event, we're heading in the right direction.

"I also think one of the reasons why that attendance number has gone up is a reflection not just of the quality of the players, but the general awareness of the event. I certainly found, from a media interest perspective and just the general sort of chatter, that there seems to be more knowledge of what this event is and what this event is about."

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With all the talk about tennis balls on the tour at the moment, and given some of the comments made by players last year about travelling from Perth to Sydney, Farrow and his team have made a significant effort to make the two venues consistent to optimise the player experience.

"In Perth, you've got one of the best, if not the best, arena in the country at the RAC Arena," he said. "It's 15,000 capacity, and it's got a retractable roof. Obviously here in Sydney you've got one venue with lots of practice courts as well as Ken Rosewall Arena, which is probably the noisiest arena in the whole country with that roof and the atmosphere.

"We work really hard to keep the player experience as consistent as possible. We worked with Greenset in terms of the court speed, and the overall experience we try to match across the cities. But ultimately, they are different cities, and it's a different experience."

In spite of all of these improvements, the tournament's biggest problem still remains its format. There were several dead rubbers during the tournament, with even a vocal Polish crowd not being able to salvage the completely inconsequential tie between Poland and the Netherlands on the final day of the group stage and at one point, there was a somewhat farcical situation between Australia and Czechia, where it actually made sense for Czechia to lose the deciding mixed doubles as it meant they could face a potentially weaker opponent (as they would have faced eventual champions Poland in the quarter-finals had they won).

This raised somewhat of an integrity issue to some, but it was not something that greatly worried Farrow.

"It doesn't worry me from an integrity standpoint. The competition is what the competition is, and the rules are governed by the ATP and the WTA, not us. One thing that has been interesting this year is that the teams and captains now really understand how the event works," he explained.

"Over the four years, we're now in a situation where the captains see the scenarios and react accordingly. It's part of the event and part of the captain's role. This event is intense and highly competitive, so I see that more as strategy on the part of the captains than anything else."

With only 18 teams, this also means that there are only 36 singles players (18 ATP and 18 WTA players) in the whole tournament, meaning there are fewer opportunities for fans to see a wide range of players. This also means that a lot of players miss out, and as a result, many countries do not qualify.

During the Australian Open, one of the biggest thrills is seeing the different diasporas from around Australia support players from their diasporic nations. This year, we saw it with the crazy lines for Alex Eala from the Philippines and Zeynep Sönmez from Türkiye. In previous years, we saw it with João Fonseca from Brazil and Juan Sebastián Cabal and Robert Farah from Colombia. This is part of what makes the Australian swing so special and is really what is missing from the United Cup.

This is not entirely the fault of the tournament. Farrow revealed that he tried to get Fonseca for this year's United Cup but was hamstrung by Beatriz Haddad Maia's absence, which meant Brazil could not qualify.

"Fonseca was going to play. As it turned out, he would have missed it anyway because he's been injured for the past two weeks. But Haddad Maia was also on her way back from injury and was playing for the first time in Adelaide this week. So we were speaking to those players, and we knew they wanted to play."

This brings me to a solution. A knockout draw. 32 countries. Two singles, two doubles players on each team.

This would mean that additional teams like the Philippines and Brazil would qualify.

It would also mean that additional countries that would be genuine title contenders, like New Zealand (with their top doubles team in Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe alongside singles star Lulu Sun), would qualify. This would give fans much more choice in who to support and would create more of a World Cup festival atmosphere that is currently lacking from the tournament.

It could mean more country-inspired activations, it would mean that two ticketed courts could be sold per session, and cutting down the teams from six players to four players would mean that there is not a significant increase in players. It would also mean that the tournament can tap into emerging diaspora in Australia, like India and South Korea, exposing the sport to new fans.

I posed this to Farrow, who suggested that the attraction of two guaranteed matches was something that enticed the top players.

"For us, as a week-one event, the two guaranteed matches for the players are extremely attractive to them, but it's also extremely attractive for the competition," he said.

"If you look at some of the matches we've had, if you're Alex de Minaur and you're starting your season playing Menšík and Hurkacz and all the other great players he's played this week, and Ruud as well, what a start to the season that is. If you had a knockout format, then you sort of lose that element as well."

In a 32-draw, likely, the top players would still get their two matches, with likely easier opponents in the first two matches. It would also mean that the draw is less confusing, as there are no dead rubbers, and tickets are easier to sell in advance.

For example, if Australia is playing a Round of 32 match, the tickets for the Round of 16 could be sold as the winner of Australia v X. This would mean that tickets are easier for fans to buy and would alleviate the current situation where many of the quarter-finals are less attended because fans do not know who is playing. For teams that lose in the round of 32, surely a small challenger could be played in each city to give those teams match practice.

Tennis is screaming for a knockout country competition, with the Davis Cup and BJK Cup both having players argue for a return to this format. We have seen around the world how much success a World Cup format can have, especially in Australia, with such a strong diaspora for so many nations. Tennis is in the unique position of having a position in the calendar for such a tournament and being able to play it as a competitive mixed gender tournament. It is time for tennis to take advantage of this and take the United Cup to the next level.  

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