United Cup: Tournament director Stephen Farrow eyes Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in 2027

United Cup tournament director Stephen Farrow will continue to pursue leading male tennis stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner as he targets further crowd increases on the Perth side of the event. Farrow also flagged Perth hosting a semifinal or the final was not out of the question as the tail-end of the tournament prepares to once again wrap up in Sydney. With next year’s tournament likely to start a day earlier on New Year’s Day, Farrow was optimistic of another star-studded line-up, having received good feedback from this year’s cohort. Chief among his priorities are Sinner and Alcaraz, the young stars on the verge of a new duopoly atop the men’s tennis tour after winning all four majors between them in 2025 and accounting for seven of eight potential grand slam finalist spots last year. “We want all the best players to play, and honestly, we were really optimistic this year that at least one of them would play,” Farrow told The West Australian. “They decided to make different decisions. Clearly, they add a lot to every event they turn up to play at.” Despite the pair opting not to sign up for the tournament, Farrow was pleased with the quality of tennis from the stars who did play — including reigning French Open champion Coco Gauff, four-time major winner Naomi Osaka, dual grand slam runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas, ex-US Open champion Emma Raducanu and three-time grand slam winner Stan Wawrinka. While ticket sales did not match the record of 73,173 set in 2024 when Novak Djokovic and Alex de Minaur headlined the action, Farrow said attendances enjoyed a steady increase across the 12 sessions in six days. “Other than the year we had Australia, it’s definitely our best year yet. Our attendances were up 10 per cent; we went from about 56,000 last year to nearly 63,000 this year, so it’s effectively a whole other session that we sold,” he said. “We know we’ve got more work to do, and we’ve obviously got more seats to sell in the arena — it’s such a magnificent arena, but it’s such a big arena. “If Australia were in Perth next year, we’d obviously get more people going to watch, but we’ve got to think of it bigger than that, because I don’t think we want to be purely dependent on who might turn up at any one time to play in the event.” With Sydney once again hosting the two semifinals and a final and Perth restricted to just two quarter-finals in the knock-out stage, Farrow said he was open to Perth hosting a semifinal or even a final. “We’re in conversation with Tourism WA, as we are with Destination NSW in Sydney. It’s perfectly possible,” he said. “There are obviously challenges in it because of the time zone difference and all the things that everyone would be aware of, but it’s definitely not impossible, something that we’re definitely open to and we’re actively talking about. “That is something that is perfectly possible that can happen over the next few years.” Farrow said the feedback from players was positive, chief among them Tsitsipas, who played in Perth for the third time in four years and ended his streak of almost two years without a win over a top 10 opponent by beating American Taylor Fritz. “I’ve had a message from him saying how much he enjoyed it, what a special connection he feels there and how much he wants to come back,” Farrow said. “He’s talking about could he come over and do training blocks in Perth.”