US Open semifinalists Tiafoe and Pegula to be teammates for New York club in World Team Tennis

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Open semifinalists Frances Tiafoe and Jessica Pegula will be teammates when World Team Tennis returns to open a new season in December.

Tiafoe and Pegula will play for New York Empire Racquet Club, along with fellow top American Taylor Fritz and Camila Osorio, the league announced Wednesday.

Pegula, who faces top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday, was one of the players originally announced by the league last month, along with Tommy Paul for Florida Flamingos Racquet Club and Denis Shapovalov for the Toronto North Racquet Club.

Tiafoe will face Ben Shelton on Friday in the men's semifinals.

Joining Paul are young Americans Learner Tien and Iva Jovic. The Toronto team has Canadians Leylah Fernandez, Victoria Mboko and Gabriel Diallo.

Hall of Famer Billie Jean King was one of the founders of World Team Tennis in 1974, as a way of having a mixed-gender team format for tennis.

The league will have a new match format featuring four singles sets (a men's and women's No. 1 and No. 2), and a mixed doubles super tiebreaker. Each team will start two men and two women.

Additional players will be announced in the coming weeks and the season begins with the Empire hosting the Flamingos on Dec. 1 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

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