ATP Cup breakdown: how does it work, who's playing & what's at stake?

New year, new decade, new tournament: the 2020 tennis season kicks off on Friday (Thursday night in the U.S.) with the ATP Cup, a new team competition that will feature a strong line-up of players competing for their countries, ranking points and a total prize purse of $15 million.

So, how exactly does the ATP Cup work?

The inaugural ATP Cup, a 10-day event running from Friday, January 3 to Sunday, January 12, will welcome teams from 24 countries around the world, each consisting of five players. The 24 teams are divided into six groups of four teams, and over the course of the first six days, every team will play the other three teams in their respective group in a best-of-three-match tie—two singles matches followed by a doubles match. The singles matches are best-of-three sets, while the doubles matches will have a match tiebreaker if they split the first two sets, as well as no-ad scoring.

The six teams that finish first in their groups, as well as the two best second-place finishers, will advance to the eight-team, single-elimination tournament-within-a-tournament which take place over the last four days. The quarterfinals will take place over two days, then the semifinals and finals on Saturday and Sunday, January 11 and 12.

The action will be spread out across Australia: the group stages take place in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney, before the final eight teams converge in Sydney.

The ATP is staging the ATP Cup in partnership with Tennis Australia, and it marks a return to team competition to the ATP tour for the first time since the World Team Cup, which was held in Dusseldorf, Germany between 1978 to 2012. It’s not just for country pride, either: there’s $15 million in prize money up for grabs, and players can earn up to 750 points in singles and 250 points in doubles.

“I like that it’s owned by the ATP, by the players, and that we have ranking points,” said world No. 2 Novak Djokovic. “It’s going to be the best way to kick start the season. Australia is a country that has a Grand Slam and that nurtures tennis tradition. More than 90 percent of the time we’re playing as individuals and we don’t have too many team events, so this will bring together a lot of nations.

“For me, personally, it will be a very nice and proud moment to represent my country.”

The ATP Cup groups have already been set, as well as where they’ll play their group stage ties. Each team consists of five player; below are each team’s two highest-ranked players, as of now.

Group A [Brisbane]

Serbia (Novak Djokovic, Dusan Lajovic)

France (Gael Monfils, Benoit Paire)

South Africa (Kevin Anderson, Lloyd Harris)

Chile (Cristian Garin, Nicolas Jarry)

Group B [Perth]

Spain (Rafael Nadal, Roberto Bautista Agut)

Japan (Yoshihito Nishioka, Go Soeda)

Georgia (Nikoloz Basilashvili, Aleksandre Metreveli)

Uruguay (Pablo Cuevas, Martin Cuevas)

Group C [Sydney]

Belgium (David Goffin, Steve Darcis)

Great Britain (Daniel Evans, Cameron Norrie)

Bulgaria (Grigor Dimitrov, Dimitar Kuzmanov)

Moldova (Radu Albot, Alexander Cozbinov)

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Group D [Perth]

Russia (Daniil Medvedev, Karen Khachanov)

Italy (Fabio Fognini, Stefano Travaglia)

United States (John Isner, Taylor Fritz)

Norway (Casper Ruud, Viktor Durasovic)

Group E [Sydney]

Austria (Dominic Thiem, Dennis Novak)

Croatia (Borna Coric, Marin Cilic)

Argentina (Diego Schwartzman, Guido Pella)

Poland (Hubert Hurkacz, Kamil Majchrzak)

Group F [Brisbane]

Germany (Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lenard Struff)

Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas, Michail Pervolarakis)

Canada (Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime)

Australia (Alex de Minaur, Nick Kyrgios)