World Team Tennis is a competitive team event that was first contested in 1974. The tournament was the first to advocate equal pay for both men and women. Additionally, its unique format and characteristic tennis court have amassed spectators globally. It’s popularity exists till date and has been one of the leading team competitions of the United States of America (USA).
World Team Tennis features nine teams in its current version. The teams represent a major city of the USA. Each team has at least two men and two women tennis players. A match between two teams features five sets. Each set is played in the following format: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. It is the coach of the home side that decides the order of the format of each set.
A set is won when a team wins five games. Each game follows a no-ad format. This means that the point after deuce will decide the set. At a set score of four-all, a nine-point tiebreak decides the winner. A team is awarded one point for each game won.
The court of WTT is multicolored and is known for its calico-type format. Originally, it bore four colors: blue, green, brown and maroon. The blue represents hard courts, green represents grass, brown represents dirt and orange represents clay. The brown was later replaced by purple. Starting in 2019, the entire court switched to a blue color with the external area of the court having a gray color.
The teams representing the cities of Sacramento and Washington have won the most titles (six each). The most recent champions of the tournament were the Orange County Breakers who won in 2021. The event was not held in 2022 in order to plan for expansion of franchises.
