Game. Set. Match! The first ATP Cup has officially come to an end.
The ATP Cup, a 24-country team competition, featuring AUD $22 million prize money and a maximum of 750 singles and 250 doubles ATP Rankings points, played over 10 days across Perth, Sydney and Brisbane.
This tournament is unlike any other in the world with many innovations introduced. Team Zones were located in the corners of the court, to bring players closer to the fans than ever before. Teams had access to real time statistics, data, insights and match vision for the coaches, and video review enabled communication between Chair Umpires and VR operators. We also saw on court coaching from the team captain and fellow players.
The ATP Cup drew in 220,319 tennis fans watch the top 188 players, including eight of the top ten, with World No.1 Rafael Nadal and Russia’s World No. 5 Daniil Medvedev treating Perth to world class play. RAC Arena was lucky enough to host the highest attended session during the group stages, with 8,139 fans coming along to cheer on Team Spain vs Team Japan.
Nadal described the ATP Cup at RAC Arena as an “amazing experience”, going on to say it was “one of the nicest arenas that I ever played”.
“I’m super, super happy to be here in Perth for the first time in my life.”
The eight teams competing at RAC Arena made the most of what Perth had to offer during their stay, with Team Spain vising Rottnest Island (and of course, scoring a quokka selfie!), Team Russia hitting Cottesloe Beach to race against the junior Surf Life Saving nippers and Team Italy enjoying a coffee on Murray Street in the city.
From Perth, Team Russia and Team Spain progressed to the final eight in held in Sydney, with Spain not backing down until the final tie of the tournament against Team Serbia.
This tournament was made extra special with Tennis Australia announcing they would donate $100 for every ace that was scored during the ATP Cup to assist with the bush fire crisis. By the end of the 10 days, the grand total came to 1,322 aces served, taking the cumulative total of funds raised to $132,000. With 33 aces, Team USA’s John Isner achieved the most aces served in a single match. He also took out second place overall on the ace leader board with a cumulative total of 52 aces throughout the tournament. On top of Tennis Australia’s generous donations, ATP players donated a combined $725,000 to WWF’s Australian Wildlife and Nature Recovery Fund.
The ATP Cup was the ultimate start to Perth’s summer of tennis – bring on next year’s cup!
