BRISBANE, Australia — If it is a new yr, it have to be critical tennis time Down Underneath.
Simply over six weeks because the ATP and WTA held their respective 2025 Finals, gamers on the lads’s and ladies’s excursions are arriving in Australia and New Zealand for a crammed two-week schedule of tournaments forward of the Australian Open, the yr’s first Grand Slam occasion beginning Jan. 18 in Melbourne.
Main the way in which is the United Cup, a combined groups occasion which shall be performed in Perth and Sydney starting Friday and ending Jan. 11. The match will function 4 of the world’s prime 10 women and men together with Coco Gauff, Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur, Iga Świątek, Alexander Zverev, Jasmine Paolini and Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Additionally throughout the first full week of 2026, the Brisbane Worldwide shall be headlined by defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, recent off the Battle of the Sexes exhibition in opposition to Nick Kyrgios in Dubai.
However lacking from the pre-Australian Open tournaments are the 2 largest names in males’s tennis: No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and second-ranked Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz and Sinner — who’ve received 9 of the final 10 Grand Slam singles titles, with Sinner profitable the 2025 Australian Open — have determined to play an exhibition at Incheon, South Korea on Jan. 10. After the exhibition, it is anticipated they will fly to Australia to start their preparations at Melbourne Park.
Alcaraz shall be enjoying his first main in seven years with out coach Juan Carlos Ferrero — the Spanish participant just lately introduced their break up. Alcaraz has not introduced a substitute.
Different gamers on the United Cup, which begins Friday with Greece taking over Japan in Perth, embrace Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Stan Wawrinka, who has stated 2026 shall be his final yr on tour.
The 40-year-old, three-time main winner Wawrinka says he hopes to enhance on his present rating of 157 and transfer again into the highest 100 earlier than he retires. His highest rating was No. 3, achieved when he received the Australian Open in 2014.
“I’m proud of the choice (to retire) and feeling at peace with that,” Wawrinka stated when he arrived earlier this week in Perth.
Becoming a member of Sabalenka on the 500-level Brisbane Worldwide shall be two-time main finalist Amanda Anisimova, WTA Finals champion Elena Rybakina, reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva.
The 18-year-old Andreeva is tipped to be the subsequent massive factor in ladies’s tennis and he or she might renew her rivalry with Sabalenka in Brisbane. Sabalenka leads 4-2 within the head-to-head matches however world No. 9 Andreeva had a three-set win within the Indian Wells remaining in 2025.
The Russian additionally made it to the quarterfinals ultimately yr’s French Open and Wimbledon together with the semis at Roland Garros in 2024 when at 17 she turned the youngest to succeed in the ultimate 4 in a serious since Martina Hingis on the 1997 U.S. Open.
“Possibly the rivalry (with Sabalenka) is a little bit bit there however she is main … sadly … for now,” Andreeva advised Australian Related Press this week.
Andreeva misplaced to Sabalenka within the semifinals in Brisbane in 2025 and once more within the fourth spherical on the Australian Open earlier than her victory at Indian Wells the place she was the youngest winner since Serena Williams.
“That gave me a whole lot of confidence. Successful Indian Wells is a milestone of my profession up to now,” she stated.
Within the second week of the warm-up occasions, the joint ATP- WTA Adelaide Worldwide that includes 24-time Grand Slam singles champion Novak Djokovic will run from Jan. 12-17 in addition to a WTA 250 match at Hobart, Australia.
Auckland, New Zealand will host a WTA match from Jan. 5-11 earlier than the ATP performs on the similar venue from Jan. 12-17. Kyrgios and Frances Tiafoe are scheduled to play in an exhibition match at Kooyong in Melbourne a number of days earlier than the Australian Open begins.
And in the one warm-up match being performed outdoors Australia or New Zealand, Hong Kong will host an ATP occasion from Jan. 5-11.
The ATP occasions will come beneath a brand new rule for 2026 to handle excessive warmth throughout males’s matches that can enable for 10-minute breaks throughout best-of-three-sets singles matches and is much like what was put in place on the WTA greater than 30 years in the past.
