United Cup: Tournament director Stephen Farrow lifts the curtain on organising the star-laden tennis event

Tournament director Stephen Farrow remembers the moment the idea for the United Cup began to crystallize, when it felt like the embryonic plan had some momentum behind it. Farrow recalled sitting next to Tennis Australia head of player relations Andre Sa at Melbourne Park, with the year’s first major firmly in swing, when Greek superstar Stefanos Tsitsipas sidled up to the pair and struck up a conversation. “We were talking to him about about the ATP Cup, and Stefanos said ‘You know what you guys should do? You should do a mixed event,’” Farrow told The West Australian. “Funnily enough, we’d been talking about that, because that was always the goal: To have the men and the women play together, to really celebrate something that was so special about tennis, that it’s played at such a high level on both the women’s and the men’s side of the sport.” The 2025 United Cup is a little more than a fortnight away, and this year’s Perth side of the draw boasts some of the biggest names in tennis. While Perth missed out on hosting the Australian team for this year’s event, they arguably scored the stronger side of the draw than Sydney, including a top-seeded USA side boasting 2023 US Open champion Coco Gauff and men’s world number four Taylor Fritz. But that is just the tip of the iceberg for Perth, with Tsitsipas and the Greek team returning to Perth for the second time in three years, Chinese Olympic gold medallist and Australian Open runner-up Qinwen Zheng back once again, while men’s world No.3 Alexander Zverev and former Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina headline the Germany and Kazakhstan teams respectively. Croatia meanwhile, will feature Paris silver medallist Donna Vekic, Brazil will be lead by women’s world number 17 Beatriz Haddad Maia and Canada have top 31-ranked Felix Auger-Alliassime and Leylah Fernandez leading their hopes. But how does a tournament involving two Olympic medallists, two top four men’s players, three top six women’s players and two more within range of the top 10 come together? The answer: A lot of discussions, and a lot of planning. ”This is an event which the players want to play and what gives me immense optimism about the event, and I know I’m hopelessly biased when I say it, but it is a great event,” Farrow said. “If it was a real struggle for us to get players to play this event, then we’d have to be questioning ourselves. “This could have been a year where players might have thought ‘I want to spend Christmas at home and then come a bit later to Australia’ but that’s not what we found at all. In fact, we’ve got our strongest line-up in terms of the overall competition that we’ve had in the three years.” Before a ball has been served this year, planning will have begun for the 2026 tournament, and once the tennis season is in swing, Farrow will start talking to players and their agents about the prospect of starting their next year in Perth. As early as the first days of November, Farrow was already in meetings where ideas for next year’s event were floated. “I spend a considerable time in my role speaking to players, speaking to coaches and agents throughout the year about the United Cup, educating them as to what’s involved,” Farrow said. “The minute the United Cup finishes this year, we’ll go into debriefs about what we could improve, and then we’re really getting into the planning stage for the following year, looking at the budget, what more we can do to grow each year. “We don’t just want to have the status quo. We want to be better, sell more tickets, an even better playing field. “We’re always looking at what are the new things we can do, what are the extra things we can do to make this event even more special.” Farrow spent six-and-a-half years as tournament director at Queen’s Club Championships, one of the biggest lead-in events to Wimbledon. While the United Cup is a different beast entirely compared to the men’s only, mid-season singles event, Farrow said the same lessons could be applied to the Perth tournament — particularly given their shared proximity to grand slam events. “Two weeks from a grand slam is an absolutely critical and important week for a player with regard to preparation,” he said. “What players want that week is top quality practice, top quality opposition, they want to win the tournaments that week...but they also really, above all else, want to make sure they’re in tip-top condition when they go to the grand slam. “That’s one of the things that we worked really hard on at Queen’s, with regard to the practice facilities and the way we looked after players and it’s the same at United Cup as well.” Timing is a key part of Farrow’s pitch to prospective players. By the time the Perth leg concludes on New Year’s Day, there will be less than a fortnight to go, and by the time a winner has been crowned in Sydney on January 5, there will be just a week before the first round of the Australian Open. During a period when players are desperate for matches to fine-tune their limited preparation for the year’s first major, they crave live reps and clashes against good opponents. “One of the reasons the United Cup format is loved so much by the players is because everyone gets a guaranteed two singles matches, and because it’s such a strong competition, those matches are going to be against high quality opposition,” Farrow said. “With a view to preparing for Melbourne, Alex de Minaur, for example, he’ll play (Tomas) Etcheverry of Argentina and Jack Draper from Great Britain as a minimum.” It is not just the on-court spectacle which demands Farrow’s attention. The accompanying background cogs required for the machine to function — such as the commercial aspect around ticket sales, sponsorship and logistics of getting players to Perth — occupies his mind 11 months out from the annual tournament. “You look at all the different aspects of what you need to do to put on an event - operationally, you want it to run well, you want the production of the event inside the stadium and the experience for the fans coming into the stadium to be safe, exciting, comfortable, to be an environment they want to keep coming back to,” he said.