How the Hopman Cup tennis tournament works

Not sure how the Hopman Cup tennis tournament works? Read on for all the answers.

The Hopman Cup is an ITF invitational event consisting of eight nation based teams.

Each team is made up of one female and one male player.

While there are no ranking points at stake, players play for their country, for prize money and the winners receive a fabulous diamond encrusted tennis racket trophy.

The eight teams are seeded and drawn into two groups. The top seeded team is placed into group A along with a team drawn from each of the third and fourth seeds; fifth and sixth seeds and seventh and eighth seeds. The other teams make up Group B.

In 2017 Roger Federer played his first tournament since Wimbledon at the Hopman Cup. View photos from his matches on Day 2.

View the Full 2017 Player Line-up

The 2017 Groups

Group A

• France
• Germany
• Great Britain
• Switzerland

Group B

• Australia
• Czech Republic
• Spain
• United States

View the Order of Play

The Round Robin Format

• Within each group every team will play the three others in a round robin format. Each group plays on alternate days.
• Each session of the Hopman Cup features a head to head match between two nations/teams.
• In total there are twelve round robin sessions and the final, which is contested by the teams that finish top of their respective groups.
• In each session of the Hopman Cup two nations/teams will play each other in three matches consisting of one men’s singles match, one women’s singles match and a mixed doubles match. The order of the two singles matches varies, but the mixed doubles is always the third match of the session.
• The team that wins at least two of the three matches wins the session.
• The singles matches are best of three sets. The third set, if necessary, is a tie-break set.
• The mixed doubles is best of three sets in the FAST4 format as detailed below.

The FAST4 Format

FAST4 is a fast moving format which means that the Mixed Doubles matches are completed quickly.

Key rules are:

• Play lets
• No ad scoring
• The first team to win 4 games wins the set
• There is a tiebreaker at 3 games all, first to five points wins.

Which teams make the final?

If there are teams tied for first place of a group at the end of the round robin format they are differentiated to produce a sole top team as follows:

• Highest total of matches won
• Best percentage of sets won/lost
• Best percentage of games won/lost
• Head to head performances
• The toss of a coin.

Until next time