Stircrazy wrote:

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24 teams, divided into six groups of four for the opening round robin opening stage, will contest this inaugural event.  Great Britain has been drawn in Group C in Sydney for the round robin, along with Belgium, Bulgaria & Moldova, & is ranked 17th overall, the N° 1 team being Serbia (NoDjo, Lajovic & Milojevic).  The team consists of Dan Evans, Cam Norrie & James Ward, the latter a replacement for Andy, who was forced to withdraw with a pelvic injury.  Interestingly, Roger the Lodger withdrew for "personal reasons" at the end of October, so there is Swiss team in the competition; Bulgaria took its place (!).  There are 750 ranking points at stake & the allocation of the prize money is explained by the ATP here.  The old Hopman Cup has been axed to make way for this new event.

Team GB's first round robin tie will be against 19th-ranked Bulgaria (Dimi, Kuzmanov & Lazarov) in Sydney on Friday (3rd January), starting at 17.30 local time (06.30 GMT). GB will face 10th-ranked Belgium (Goffin, Darcis & Coppejans) at the same time on Sunday (5th January) &, lastly, Moldova next Tuesday (7th January) at 10.00 local time (23.00 GMT on Monday).

The knock-out stage will take place in the Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney, with the winner of Group C taking on the winner of Group F (Germany, Greece, Canada or Australia (WC)) on 9th January, while on 10th January, the lower runner-up will play the winner of Group A (Serbia, France, South Africa or Chile) & the higher ranked runner-up the winner of Group B (Spain, Japan, Georgia or Uruguay).  The semi-finals are due to be played on 11th January & the final on the 12th.

I trust that's enough information to set the ball rolling.

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 Excellent summary SC, thank you  - it answered all the questions I had  ! 

In terms of how well we will do. 

Bulgraria - 2nd singles and doubles should be ours, probably a 2-1 win is the safe forecast.

Belgium - I think this will be tight but again, we can  hope to maybe win 2nd singles and win the doubles. 

Moldova - could be 3-0, but Dan v Albot was excellent and tight when the played in delray final last year and could  be close again. 

I think we should hope to win the group still, if we lose to Belgium then getting one of the 2 top RU spots will be a close call, maybe a lottery.  

We would then play , as SC says, Germany, France , Canada or Australia, perhaps the toughest group and whoever comes through that will be hot favourites to beat GB. QF is probably our ambition in this event.

Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Shhh wrote:

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Thank you Stircrazy, not just for this but all the other informative posts you contribute for interested but lazier types such as I :)

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You're very welcome, Shhh.     I was surprised how long it took me to get it looking what I felt was "right", appropriate, if you prefer.

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And yet I still managed to entitle the post "Brisbane, Sydney & Sydney" instead of "Brisbane, Perth & Sydney"!      Glad I spotted it before anyone else pointed out my error!       

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 The only other small note SC is that it is Weeks 53 and 1   Week 52 was the week of 23 Dec 

Stircrazy wrote:

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Michael D wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Shhh wrote:

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Thank you Stircrazy, not just for this but all the other informative posts you contribute for interested but lazier types such as I :)

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You're very welcome, Shhh.     I was surprised how long it took me to get it looking what I felt was "right", appropriate, if you prefer.

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And yet I still managed to entitle the post "Brisbane, Sydney & Sydney" instead of "Brisbane, Perth & Sydney"!      Glad I spotted it before anyone else pointed out my error!       

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 The only other small note SC is that it is Weeks 53 and 1   Week 52 was the week of 23 Dec 

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Believe it or not, I hummed & hawed over that for ages & eventually opted for "52" because of the illogicality of a 53-week year!    Amended (as opposed to corrected)!

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Yes I thought it might confound your logical approach, but exceptions make the rules as you know   

C/RR1:  (2) Cameron Norrie WR 53 (CH = 41 last May) vs (2) Dimitar Kuzmanov (BUL) WR 423 (CH 250 in December 2018)

C/RR1:  (1) Daniel Evans WR 42 (CH = 41 in March 2017) vs (1) Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) WR 20 (CH = 3 in November 2017)

According to the dedicated Cup page on the ATP site, the doubles players have yet to be decided.  Tin Pan will surely select Jamie & Joe ... won't he?

The atp cup is based on rankings for team selection, not by the captain, unlike davis cup which is purely captains selection.