By the end, it was complete anarchy. As Matteo Berrettini sent a final forehand sailing over the baseline, giving the US an unassailable lead in the final of the inaugural United Cup, Taylor Fritz stood with his arms aloft, grinning from ear to ear, before abruptly disappearing beneath a human mountain.
Inevitably, Frances Tiafoe was first on the scene, wrestling Fritz to the ground before Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys and the rest of the victorious US team could even get a look in.
“As soon as I won, I turned to the team and I knew everyone was going to run at me,” said Fritz after his 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (8-6) victory over Berrettini.
“It was great until Frances full speed head-butted me in the face.”
“I’m still a bit concussed to be fair,” chimed in Tiafoe, who went on to douse Fritz in water during his on-court interview with Jim Courier, then joined his team-mates in administering the same treatment to Keys.
Here was a victory built on quality and camaraderie. The US lived up to their status as title favourites with emphatic performances on the court, where they were beaten just twice in 24 matches, and winning chemistry off it. Fired by escape room high jinks, social media banter and deep mutual respect, the Americans created an energy so irresistibly infectious then even the opposition wasn’t immune.
That much was evident when Berrettini and the watching Tiafoe shared a low-five after the Italian blazed a dazzling running pass beyond the stranded Fritz. For Tennis Australia it was pure gold, a moment that evoked something of the spirit of the Hopman Cup, the mixed team event the governing body controversially abandoned three years ago, and which their latest brainchild has effectively superseded.
“I had a blast these two weeks,” said David Witt, the US captain and coach of Pegula. “It was a lot of fun. A lot of tennis watching, but I had a blast. You guys are so immature, and I love you for it. I feel like I’m at home with my eight kids. This is like the Brady Bunch on something. It’s crazy.”
Beyond all the high spirits and prankery, however, it is too early to declare the United Cup an unmitigated success. Cast the mind back a couple of days, to Iga Swiatek’s evident distress following a 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Pegula, and the prevailing mood was quite different.
“Statement made,” declared the competition’s official Twitter account as Swiatek sat at courtside with a towel over her head, weeping, shaking and gnawing at her fingernails, inconsolable despite the best efforts of Aga Radwanska, the Polish captain, to comfort her. And a statement had indeed been made, although whether it was the one the United Cup’s social media team had in mind is another matter.
Pegula’s excellence was, of course, beyond dispute. She revelled in the quick conditions, keeping Swiatek at bay with her length, power and consistency to produce the biggest shock – and quite possibly the best performance – of the entire competition. The Polish world No 1 has since withdrawn from next week’s event in Adelaide with a shoulder injury, and only time will tell whether her tears owed more to concern about her fitness ahead of the Australian Open than the pain of defeat. Either way, Pegula’s polished performance must have felt deeply cathartic after the pain Swiatek visited upon her last year in the French and US Open quarter-finals, and the semis of Miami and San Diego.
Yet the decisive nature of the scoreline made a rather different statement, highlighting the structural flaws inherent in the United Cup format. The decision to play the competition across three cities meant that, while Poland were obliged to hotfoot if from Brisbane to Sydney following the completion of a dramatic 3-2 win over Italy on Wednesday, the US team, who were based in Sydney from the outset, could simply put their feet up and reflect on a job well done in their group matches against the Czech Republic and Germany. Neither Pegula nor Swiatek were oblivious to the influence the piecemeal schedule may have had on the outcome.
“Obviously maybe I had a little bit of an advantage,” said Pegula after her win on Friday. “They just flew in yesterday. Definitely the fastest conditions I have played her. Every other place I’ve played her has been pretty slow. I think that favoured me a lot, and I was able to use that to my advantage.”
It was a typically honest and measured assessment by the 28-year-old, particularly after claiming one of the biggest wins of her career – and organisers would do well to pay heed. For all the memorable moments the United Cup has produced – Cameron Norrie securing the finest win of his career against Rafael Nadal, Petra Kvitova’s gutsy group-stage win over Pegula, Stefanos Tsitsipas’s cathartic third-set fightback against Borna Coric, who had won their three previous meetings, to name but a few – player welfare must also be a consideration.
It takes little more than 90 minutes to fly from Brisbane to Sydney, but that is to reckon without delays and the countless time-consuming monotonies familiar to any everyday traveller. Factor in other variables like the need to recover, acclimatise and practise, and the potential influence on results becomes clear. Unbeaten in the group stage, Poland were whitewashed 5-0 by the US. Croatia, meanwhile, who likewise won both their group matches, were beaten 4-1 by Italy. Both teams had to travel to Sydney but, while the Italians came from Brisbane, Croatia had a more arduous journey, making their way from Perth, with a flight time of more than four hours.
It is, as Swiatek explained, a lot to take on.
“We didn’t have time to rest at all,” said Swiatek. “I’m not going to blame that, because we just have to play tennis.
“But the past two days were pretty unfortunate. [With] everything, basically. Our travel got delayed yesterday. You know, after sitting all day you have to practise and get used to the conditions, but you can’t do that in 30 minutes.
“The conditions are similar, the court is basically the same, but, you know, the rain. In Brisbane it was pretty humid and hot. Here, the opposite. So I wouldn’t say I needed to get used to it, but for sure I think traveling all day yesterday, my reaction time was probably a little bit worse.
“It’s not only about traveling because you have to pack, you have to unpack, you have to organise everything.
“When you’re traveling in such a big group, there is more going on. So it wasn’t easy. I didn’t recover well. I think I didn’t recover at all.”
Whether that had an impact on her subsequent injury, only the Pole can say. Yet the fact remains that, having already lost the world’s top-ranked man to injury following the withdrawal of Carlos Alcaraz, the Australian Open is now at risk of going ahead without the women’s No 1 too. Emulating the format of the now-defunct ATP Cup by playing the competition across three cities may help to foster the sport in Australia, but at what price?
Redundancy and confusion have also loomed large at the United Cup. Any competition in which five matches can be played over two days with nothing riding on the outcome is clearly imperfect. Spread the action across 18 teams, six groups and three cities, and even the most hardened tennis anorak is likely to encounter the odd moment of bewilderment.
That is not to decry the United Cup concept. A tournament that unites the world’s leading men and women can only be good for the game. Poland may have felt hard done by at seeing an Italy team they dismissed 4-1 in Brisbane reach the final ahead of them, but Vincenzo Santopadre’s side were good value for their semi-final win over Greece, with Martina Trevisan’s three-set victory over Maria Sakkari especially impressive.
And while Poland could certainly have done without a formidable US team having “home” advantage, it is not without reason that Chris Evert hailed Pegula’s win over Swiatek as “the best match I’ve ever seen her play”. With Pegula in such outstanding form, they could have played the match on a clay court in Warsaw and the result might have been the same.
Nadal nonetheless had a valid point when he called for a reappraisal of the United Cup’s scheduling. The Spaniard’s frustration stemmed from the fact that Spain were eliminated before their opening match against Great Britain was even finished. Having started their campaign in a three-team group with victory over Australia, Britain were immediately thrust back into action against Spain. Once they went 3-1 up against Nadal and company, their progress was guaranteed, rendering both the concluding mixed doubles and the subsequent tie between Spain and Australia meaningless.
“Putting things in perspective [with] this competition, I find a negative point,” said Nadal. “Competition is great. Idea is great. It’s not great that today we are playing for nothing. It’s the first year of this competition, so that’s the kind of thing that we need to fix, to improve, and to make it more interesting for everyone.
“I really believe that in a group of three, the loser of the first tie needs to play with the team that didn’t play yet, because that makes the competition much more interesting.”
Like many others, Nadal also touched on the wisdom of playing the mixed doubles last, a decision that frequently resulted in dead rubbers.
All perfectly fair points, you would think. Yet Craig Tiley, the Tennis Australia chief, refused to countenance any criticism, instead pointing to impressive attendance figures and declaring the case against the competition closed.
“The United Cup’s absolutely fantastic,” said Tiley on Tuesday. “We’ve had full stadiums, we’ve had over 120,000 people already go through the gate. Yesterday, 40,000 people in one day in Perth, Brisbane and in Sydney.
“That’s remarkable, we’ve never had that. In some ways it beats most major tennis events around the world for one day’s attendance. So I think [it’s been] unbelievably successful.”
It was a curious way to defend an event conceived partly out of a desire to atone for the inequalities of the ATP Cup, a competition every bit as exclusively male as its name implies. Infamously, the now-defunct tournament resulted in some of the world’s top women being relegated to the outside courts at 2019’s Brisbane International, prompting Maria Sharapova to describe the concurrent WTA competition as “a little bit of a second-hand event”. It was a rare misstep by Tennis Australia, but one for which the United Cup has obvious potential to make redress.
From a pickle juice-infused Paula Badosa rallying from a set down to beat Britain’s Harriet Dart and Pegula’s shock win over Swiatek, to the superb quality on show from both players in Trevisan’s passion-drenched semi-final win over Sakkari, the WTA’s finest produced many of the United Cup’s best moments. Surely the case for the event would have been better served by highlighting the positive impact generated by the return of the world’s leading women?
There was certainly little emphasis on anticipated attendance figures two months ago, when the advent of the competition was trumpeted as a victory for gender equality. Ticket sales may have been slow initially but, in a country where tennis enjoys enduring popularity, putting bums on seats was never likely to be a problem, certainly not now that Covid restrictions have been relaxed. Egalitarianism was the watchword and, in that respect at least, the United Cup has been a resounding success. Evert spoke for many when she expressed her enthusiasm for the tournament in a post on social media.
“There’s a lot to be said for these team competitions like United Cup in tennis,” wrote the 18-time grand slam winner. “The men and women players cheering for each other. I’m watching Rafa screaming for Paula Badosa… It warms my heart! So refreshing!”
As Fritz pointed out, welcoming women back into the fold has created a better competition.
“Before we even came into this, I said that having the women playing with us just makes the team a lot stronger from the guys’ side,” said Fritz.
“We’ve struggled a bit, I’d say. Having the women with us makes the team a lot stronger.”
With players and public alike on board, and Tiley promising a post-tournament “debrief” that promises to see the mixed doubles afforded greater significance, the signs are auspicious for the United Cup.
Further refinements may be required – there is certainly a case for moving the tournament to a single location, or at least playing the knockout rounds at a “neutral” venue – but Tennis Australia has a potential hit on its hands.