Elena Rybakina Annoyed By 'Not Fair' United Cup Format After Semi-Final Loss
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Elena Rybakina and her teammate Alexander Shevchenko were less than impressed by the format used at the 2025 United Cup after their semi-final loss.
The United Cup is a relatively complex, but also new competition. That means it might take some fine-tuning based on the feedback from players to make it a tournament that everyone would love.
For example, in the inaugural edition of the tournament, which was won by the United States, the ties were played in the best-of-five matches format, which changed to the best-of-three matches already in the second edition.
Some teams didn't have a field of players deep enough to challenge the biggest nations in so many matches, which made many matches of lower-ranked players against high-ranked players unattractive. This changed already in the second edition.
Another change between the first and second editions of the tournament was the host cities. In 2023, three cities hosted the United Cup. Brisbane, Perth, and Sydney were all hosts to the team competition.
From 2024, only Perth and Sydney remained, which also marked the return of the Brisbane International to the calendars, meaning tennis stayed in Brisbane.
The problem of multiple host cities at the United Cup
At the same time, the United Cup kept a relatively interesting format with two different host cities. That, however, also creates a challenge for players, as Perth and Sydney are located on opposite sides of the country and also separated by a three-hour time difference.
From the semi-final stages, all of the ties are played in Sydney, which means that the two victorious teams from Perth have to move across the country.
This year, those countries were the United States and Kazakhstan, and they had mixed fortunes in the semi-finals. While the United States overcame the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan lost to Poland.
After their loss, the players were asked about the format, and they didn't hold back from criticizing it. Alexander Shevchenko was very open about why he thought the format was not fair.
"No, it's not fair. No, to be honest, I think it's just ridiculous that we have to fly five hours and then the time changes because, as a team, we went to sleep a little bit later because we could not fall asleep."
"Obviously, the conditions are so much different. Here it's indoors, and there it's outdoors. There, it's quite a bit slower. Here, it's faster. Yeah, I think they should change probably that, because this is not the right thing to do."
Rybakina's honest assessment of the issue
Rybakina echoed his claims, detailing the challenges that players had to face in relation to the travel and also time changes. On top of that, Kazakhstan had to play the first tie, which was demanding.
"Well, I would say the same. Of course, it's not easy to fly. It was, like, four-and-a-half, five hours' flight, and then you have only a day and a half basically to prepare, to adjust."
"Of course, it's not enough. Other teams have the same, but we also started at 10:00. I would agree that ideally, if we would play everybody in one place, it will be much better for everyone."
