United Cup 2026: How to watch, TV and streaming, dates, schedule, prize money, is Emma Raducanu playing?

Serving as the curtain-raiser for the entire tennis season, the 2026 United Cup will soon take centre stage, as 18 nations compete for an early slice of silverware.

The newly-coined tournament provides players with invaluable hard-court practice Down Under ahead of the 2026 Australian Open, and the upcoming event will be just the fourth edition of the competition.

The United States are bidding to defend the title they regained in 2025, having also conquered the competition in its inaugural year in 2023 before ceding the title to Germany.

Here, Sports Mole runs through everything you need to know about the 2026 United Cup.

When and where is the 2026 United Cup?

The United Cup takes place from January 2 to January 11 and will be held across two venues in Perth (RAC Arena) and Sydney (Ken Rosewall Arena).

The RAC Arena holds more spectators with 15,500 seats, but the 10,500-capacity Ken Rosewall Arena will host the semi-finals and final.

2026 United Cup format

The 18 nations competing at the United Cup have been split into three groups of three, and each country will face each other once, encompassing two singles matches and a doubles rubber if required.

The six group winners automatically advance to the quarter-finals, and they will be joined by the best runners-up in both cities - the highest-ranked second-placed teams from Perth and Sydney.

The number of ties won and played is the main tie-breaker in the round-robin phase, after which the order will be determined by number of matches won, number of sets won and number of games won.

2026 United Cup schedule

All times UK

Group A (Perth)

January 2: Spain vs. Argentina (2am)

January 3: United States vs. Argentina (9am)

January 5: United States vs. Spain (2am)

Group B (Sydney)

January 3: Belgium vs. China (11.30pm Jan 2)

January 4: Canada vs. China (6.30am)

January 6: Canada vs. Belgium (11.30pm Jan 5)

Group C (Perth)

January 3: France vs. Switzerland (2am)

January 4: Italy vs. Switzerland (9am)

January 6: Italy vs. France (2am)

Group D (Sydney)

January 3: Australia vs. Norway (11.30pm Jan 2)

January 5: Czech Republic vs. Norway (11.30pm Jan 4)

January 6: Australia vs. Czech Republic (6.30am)

Group E (Perth)

January 2: Greece vs. Japan (9am)

January 4: Great Britain vs. Japan (2am)

January 5: Great Britain vs. Greece (9am)

Group F (Sydney)

January 4: Germany vs. Netherlands (11.30pm Jan 3)

January 5: Germany vs. Poland (6.30am)

January 7: Poland vs. Netherlands (11.30pm Jan 6)

Quarter-finals

January 7: Winner Group A vs. Best Perth runner-up | Winner Group C vs. Winner Group E

January 8: Winner Group F vs. Winner Group D

Semi-finals

January 9: Best Sydney runner-up vs. Winner Group B

January 10: Semi-final 1 and 2

Final

January 11: Final

How to watch the 2026 United Cup

Viewers in the UK can watch the United Cup on Sky Sports and its associated streaming service, NOW TV.

A full list of international broadcasters can be found here.

2026 United Cup prize money

A pot of $11,806,190 (£8.8m) has been allocated to the United Cup for prize money and participation fees, split evenly for ATP and WTA players.

Who is playing at the 2026 United Cup?

GB fans hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack Draper in action will have to wait a little while longer, as the national number one has been forced to pull out of both the United Cup and Australian Open owing to his ongoing arm injury.

However, Emma Raducanu will be competing at the team event, and the 2021 US Open winner is scheduled to face Maria Sakkari and Naomi Osaka in two high-profile singles matches.

Meanwhile, Billy Harris will be flying the men's singles flag high for GB, but he is the second-lowest men's singles player in the competition behind the veteran Stan Wawrinka, still going strong for Switzerland at 40.

There are four top-10 ATP singles players present in Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur and Felix Auger-Aliassime, as well as Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Hubert Hurkacz.

Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff headline the women's field alongside Osaka, Raducanu, Jasmine Paolini and Barbora Krejcikova, who comes into the tournament with a protected ranking of 65.