UTS Guadalajara adds star power: Davidovich Fokina and Tabilo choose UTS over the 2026 Davis Cup qualifiers

While everything is being prepared for the Ultimate Tennis Showdown Finals—to be held in London between December 5 and 7—the exhibition event Tour already has a new date for 2026 with its arrival in Guadalajara, Mexico, already featuring several big names confirmed.

The event will kick off the 2026 UTS Tour, a series of exhibition events that have gained a reputation for featuring some of the top figures in tennis competition. The competition has been organized since 2020 by coach Patrick Mouratoglou and businessman Alex Popyrin—father of former Canadian Open winner Alexei Popyrin.

The tournament is characterized by a novel scoring format that seeks to attract more fans to the sport. It uses a scoring format divided into eight-minute quarters, where the winner of the quarter is the winner of the set. Additionally, a 15-second shot clock for serves has been introduced—forcing players not to take too long to serve—while noise is permitted while players are playing.

Another particularity of the tournament includes that players only have one serve per point, and lets are played normally. Furthermore, if a player leads a set by 10 points, KO Mode is declared, and the set is over.

Looking ahead to 2026, the exhibitions continue to attract the world's best tennis players, and the UTS has taken on a relevant role in terms of parallel tournaments to the Tour. In February of this year, the UTS season began with the first edition in Guadalajara, which ended up being a success with Tomas Machac emerging as champion against David Goffin.

Although it is not too common, UTS Guadalajara will repeat as a venue for the second consecutive year, but this time with several new names on the bill. The presence of Flavio Cobolli (No. 22) had already been announced, an Italian with experience in several UTS events who will repeat his appearance in Guadalajara.

He will be joined by two players from the Hispanic world to the delight of local fans. Spanish World No. 14 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina was confirmed as part of the event, as well as Chilean former World No. 18 Alejandro Tabilo—known as Djokovic's executioner on two occasions during the last couple of seasons.

The event in Guadalajara will take place during the same week as the 2026 Davis Cup Qualifiers, which all but confirms that both Alejandro Tabilo and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina are not planning to travel with their national teams. The Spaniard has been at the centre of controversy lately after being excluded from David Ferrer’s squad despite being the second highest-ranked player in his country, only behind Alcaraz.

However, the captain did not forgive previous withdrawals and chose to attend the Finals without ‘Foki’. Tabilo, for his part, was also involved in Davis Cup conflict during the most recent play-offs, when he decided not to travel to Chile, prioritising his participation in Challenger events in Asia—leaving the South Americans without their No. 1 star.

A total of 15 editions of the UTS have been played, crowning champions like Matteo Berrettini, Alexander Zverev, Andrey Rublev (2-times), Jack Draper, and Ben Shelton. The last player to be crowned was Francisco Cerúndolo in Hong Kong, played just a month ago. The Argentine will return to the Finals alongside several of the players who have performed best in the tournament: Draper, De Minaur, and Rublev will be part of the event's roster.

The Finals will be played starting December 5 in London, in search of the UTS "best of the best," which will mark the return of Brit World No. 10 Jack Draper to the courts. The 23-year-old ended his season early due to injuries, and since the end of the clay-swing, he only managed to appear at Wimbledon (June) and the US Open (August), being his only tournaments in the second half of the year. Draper fell from a comfortable Top 5 spot to barely staying within the Top 10. It will be a good opportunity to gauge his level after months away from high-level competition, with the start of the season in Australia as the objective for 2026.