The 2025 tennis season kicks off with the United Cup, which begins on Friday. Eighteen teams in six different groups are competing in Sydney and Perth before the semis and final take place in Sydney on the weekend of January 4-5. The six group winners and the runner-up with the best record in each of the two locations will advance out of round-robin competition and qualify for the quarterfinals.
Defending champion Germany and 2024 finalist Poland are both running it back with their same teams–Alexander Zverev and Laura Siegemund for the Germans; Hubert Hurkacz and Iga Swiatek for the Poles. They are certainly among the title contenders once again, although they will be challenged in strong field that includes the United States (Taylor Fritz, Coco Gauff), Italy (Flavio Cobolli, Jasmine Paolini), Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas, Maria Sakkari), and Czechia (Tomas Machac, Karolina Muchova).
Groups and team rosters
Group A
United States (Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff)
Canada (Felix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez)
Croatia (Borna Coric and Donna Vekic)
Group B
Poland (Hubert Hurkacz and Iga Swiatek)
Czech Republic (Tomas Machac and Karolina Muchova
Norway (Casper Ruud and Malene Helgo)
Group C
Spain (Pablo Carreno Busta and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro)
Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari)
Kazakhstan (Alexander Shevchenko and Elena Rybakina)
Group D
Italy (Flavio Cobolli and Jasmine Paolini)
France (Ugo Humbert and Chloe Paquet)
Switzerland (Dominic Stricker and Belinda Bencic)
Group E
Germany (Alexander Zverev and Laura Siegemund)
China (Zhizhen Zhang and Gao Xinyu)
Brazil (Thiago Monteiro and Beatriz Haddad Maia)
Group F
Australia (Alex de Minaur and Olivia Gadecki)
Argentina (Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Nadia Podoroska)
Great Britain (Billy Harris and Katie Boulter)
Picks
Quarterfinals: United States over Canada, Italy over Australia, Germany over Greece, and Poland over Czechia
Semifinals: United States over Italy and Poland over Germany
Final: United States over Poland
who ya got?