Hopman Cup: Over and out?

The new ATP World Team Cup in Australia could also mark the end of the popular mixed event in Perth.

Recently it became known that tennis January will be repositioned from 2020. In the future, 24 teams in Australia will play for the ATP World Team Cup for a total prize money of 15 million dollars plus ranking points. The cities where ATP tournaments have been held so far, such as Brisbane or Sydney, are to be included.

As the Australian Sunday Times reports, this means the end of the Hopman Cup organized by the ITF – even if an official announcement is still missing. However, the Perth location should at best continue to exist. “Tourism WA will work with Tennis Australia and other partners to keep world-class tennis in Perth,” a spokesman for the Western Australian government is quoted.

The next – and possibly last – Hopman Cup will take place from 29 December 2018 to 5 January 2019. Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic for Switzerland and Alexander Zverev and Angelique Kerber for Germany have once again signed up.

The Hopman Cup was first held in 1988/89 and is named after former Australian professional Harry Hopman, who is best known as the captain of the Australian Davis Cup team: 16 times he and his boys won the trophy, with legends such as Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver, Neale Fraser, Fred Stolle, Tony Roche and Roy Emerson. Hopman has always been a champion of amateur tennis – and fought professional tennis for a long time.

Germany has won the Hopman Cup twice so far: in 1993 with Michael Stich and Steffi Graf, in 1995 with Boris Becker and Anke Huber. At the beginning of this year, Switzerland won the final with Federer and Bencic over Germany with Zverev and Kerber.