The ATP Cup has already defined which will be the 12 countries that will fight for the title of the second edition of the tournament from February 1 to 5 in Melbourne in what will be the prelude to the first major tournament of the season: the Australian Open (February 8-21).
Among the 12 participating countries the absence of Switzerland is striking. And the fact is that the non-presence of Roger Federer in the tournament and in the Australian Open has caused the Swiss country not to be included in competition, as in the 2020 edition, in which Federer also refused to compete.
It should be remembered that for the ATP Cup 2021 The classification criteria are based on the position of the tennis players from each country with the highest ATP ranking and that, in principle, they will participate in the tournament, so Switzerland would be left out of these criteria after the absence of Roger Federer (Stan Wawrinka, the second best Swiss player, is 18th in the ATP individual ranking).
Thus the 12 countries confirmed for the ATP Cup 2021 are Serbia, Spain, Austria, Russia, Greece, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Japan (Nishikori appears as tenth in the ranking for the ATP Cup even though he ranks 41st in the standings), France, Canada, which comes in place of Switzerland, and Australia, who will attend as a guest as host of the tournament.