Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley has launched a fierce defence of the United Cup amid grumblings in regards to the fledgling occasion from gamers, together with the good Rafael Nadal.
Dead rubbers, largely meaningless ties, a convoluted schedule and participant withdrawals have led to criticism of the brand new blended groups match being staged as a key lead-up to the Australian Open.
Nadal’s chief beef was his Spanish outfit being out of the operating to advance to the quarter-finals after falling behind 3-1 in opposition to Great Britain, rendering the blended doubles after which 5 matches in opposition to Australia as lifeless rubbers.
“Putting things in perspective (for) this competition, I find a negative point,” the 22-time grand slam champion mentioned after his upset loss to Australia’s Alex de Minaur in Sydney on Monday evening.
“Competition is great. Idea is great. It’s not great that today we are playing for nothing.
“It’s the primary 12 months of this competitors, so that is the type of factor that we have to repair, to enhance, and to make it extra attention-grabbing for everybody.”
However, Tiley insists the event has already been a raging success.
“The United Cup’s completely incredible,” the Australian Open boss said on Tuesday.
“If you watched final evening, we have had full stadiums, we have had over 120,000 folks already undergo the gate. Yesterday, 40,000 folks in in the future in Perth, Brisbane and in Sydney.
“That’s remarkable – we’ve never had that. It beats most major tennis events around the world for one day’s attendance.
“So (it’s) unbelievably profitable, nice, optimistic suggestions from the gamers.”
Tiley’s glowing endorsement of the United Cup will come as a disappointment to those calling for a return to the traditional summer program of Australian Open lead-in ATP and WTA tournaments in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.
But he did concede some tweaking may happen, and it is understood making the mixed doubles matches guaranteed live rubbers next year is already under discussion.
Nadal sat out the mixed doubles against Great Britain after Spain were already doomed, but said he would have played had the rubber been live.
“We’ll do a debrief (on) what will be improved for 2024,” Tiley mentioned.
“It’s necessary to know that we introduced this occasion 5 weeks earlier than we began a few five-week run-up to ship on this occasion.
“Everyone wanted us to only do it in 2024, and we made a decision to do it in 2023.
“So I’m proud that the workforce’s pulled collectively what they pulled collectively.
“It’s going be a great event. It’s going to finish really strong in the finals in Sydney.”
