Teams from 29 countries line up at Vilamoura Tennis Academy to contest the men’s, women’s and quad events at the 2021 BNP Paribas World Team Cup Qualification on 10-13 May.

A host of previous men’s and women’s champions from the traditional four regional qualification events held annually for Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe will bid to earn a place at the 2021 BNP Paribas World Team Cup Finals in Sardinia in October. Four men’s teams and four women’s teams competing in Vilamoura will qualify to join those that have direct acceptances for Sardinia.

Meanwhile, with the ITF’s annual flagship wheelchair tennis team event having introduced a quad qualification event for the first time in 2020, five quad teams will attempt to earn their place in this year’s finals, with the winner and runner-up qualifying for Sardinia.

This year’s qualification competition is a unique event bringing together teams from across all four world regions, each of which are already assured of being represented at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Finals. The current direct acceptances for Sardinia include seven teams from Europe, five teams from Asia and Oceania, five teams from the Americas and one team from Africa.

Men’s Event

The men’s qualification event will consist of two knockout draws of 10 teams, with the finalists from each of the two draws making up the four teams that will book their places in Sardinia.

Among the top seven nations in the provisional seeding for the men’s event are Austria, Greece, Poland, Chile and Sri Lanka, all of whom are former winners at the European, Americas or Asian Qualification events in recent years.

However, it is Israel, former multiple finalists in European Qualification, that top the provisional men’s seeding. The highest-ranked player in the men’s event at world No.22, Israel’s Adam Berdichevsky is a recent winner on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour after taking the men’s singles title at last month’s Israel Championships, where he beat teammate Guy Sasson in the final.

Berdichevsky is also top seed for the Vilamoura Open that precedes the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Qualification, and the ITF Futures tournament is likely to provide a useful form guide ahead of players going on to represent their teams.

All four world regions that have previously hosted qualification events are represented in the men’s event in 2021, with Kenya and Tanzania representing Africa; Tanzania have previously won the African qualification event.

Host nation Portugal will attempt to qualify for the BNP Paribas World Team Cup finals for the first time since 2009, while among the other players in action will be former world No. 3 Martin Legner of Austria who has played in more World Team Cups than any other player, having represented Austria at more than 25 events since 1990.  

Women’s Event

There will be just one women’s knockout draw in Vilamoura, with the four semi-finalists qualifying for the 2021 BNP Paribas World Team Cup Finals.

Among the top five seeded nations for the women’s event, provisional top seeds Russia and third seeds France are both multiple winners of the European Qualification since 2012, Russia having won that event three times previously, most recently in Vilamoura in 2019. France won the European Qualification women’s event in 2012 and 2015.

Russian world No.15 Viktoriia Lvova has been in fine form recently, having won the last two of her three tournaments in Turkey in the second half of April. The 22-year-old former junior world No. 1 junior posted three wins against Emmanuelle Morch, the highest ranked player in the French team.

Brazil are the provisional second seeds for the women’s event and are led by Meirycoll Duval, a member of the Brazilian teams that twice won the Americas Qualification in 2016 and 2017.

Kenya represent Africa in the women’s qualification event and in Jane Ndenga, Phoebe Masika and Asiya Mohamed Sururu have three players who have previously helped the nation win the African Qualification event in 2014, 2017 and 2018.

Quad Event

Three Top 10-ranked players are among the five teams who will contest the quad event in Vilamoura, with world No. 3 Sam Schroder and world No. 6 Niels Vink making the Netherlands undoubted favourites. The five teams will start the quad event in two groups, with the winners of each group going through to the final.

Reigning US Open champion Schroder and fellow former world No. 1 junior Vink will bid to take the Netherlands back to the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Finals after finishing eighth in the 2018 finals. Challenging them will be a Brazilian team led by world No. 10 Ymantitu Silva, along with teams from Germany, Turkey and Sweden.

With both the winner and the runner-up in Vilamoura qualifying for Sardinia, German duo Marcus Laudan and Nick Nobbe and Turkey’s Ugur Altinel and Fatih Karatas will be bidding to earn their nations a place in the quad event for the World Team Cup finals for the first time. Meanwhile, a place in the top two for Sweden would earn a place in the finals for the first time since 2014.

Watch Live

You can follow all of the action from Vilamoura on the Raquetc YouTube Channel.