Tennis stars fired up about start of World Cup

The World Cup officially kicked off on Thursday, and the tennis world is extremely excited about it—even though the Cup will coincide with Wimbledon.

Maybe the most enthusiastic of everyone is No. 1 doubles player Elena Vesnina, whose home country, Russia, is hosting the tournament and won its first match 5-0 versus Saudi Arabia.

Some ATP players were asked to predict the winner, and most of them—Juan Martin del Potro, Novak Djokovic and David Goffin—picked their own countries. Grigor Dimitrov and Dominic Thiem, whose national teams didn't qualify, both picked England.

A closer look at Tennis TV's World Cup illustration shows John Isner, Andy Murray and Fabio Fognini all in the corner excluded from the party, with the United States, Scotland and Italy all failing to qualify.

Big soccer fan Roger Federer named the qualities of tennis players he'd want on his team, and he said he'd want players who are fit, fighting, creative and hardworking.

He probably wound't have much trouble getting ATP stars to play with him, either, because it's no secret that tennis players love playing soccer.

The WTA could easily assemble a pretty good team, too.

While the World Cup has gotten underway, there are still a few more grass events before Wimbledon begins on July 2.