Cup move stuns Woody
Radical plan for one-week, 18-nation event at end of season
AUSTRALIAN Davis Cup great Todd Woodbridge has accused the International Tennis Federation (ITF) of “throwing a bomb” into the tennis landscape with its plan to transform the historic competition.
The season-long Davis Cup competition is set to become a one-week, 18-nation World Cup-style event from as early as 2019 under a proposal endorsed by the ITF board and announced yesterday.
It will still crown a Davis Cup champion, but from a new event, named the World Cup of Tennis Finals, to be played in one location at the end of each season.
Woodbridge, who played in Australia’s 1999 and 2003 Davis Cup triumphs and later coached the team, wondered whether officials had fully considered the impact on the 118year-old competition with its traditional home-or-away ties before parochial fans.
The move would lessen the load on the game’s top players and hopefully ensure most played Davis Cup. But Woodbridge, a Tennis Australia ambassador, questioned the consultation process.
“The ITF has thrown this bomb into the tennis landscape,” he told SEN.
“I don’t think they’ve gone back to the players and said ‘this is what we’re doing’.
“I’m at the coal face and this is the first time I’ve heard about it.”
The proposal will be submitted for approval at the ITF’s annual general meeting in Or- lando in August and it includes a 25-year partnership, worth $3.8 billion, with investment group Kosmos to fund it.
The federation says “several world-class cities” have already expressed interest in hosting the event.
The 16 World Group nations will automatically qualify for the finals, with a further two nations to be selected.
It will also feature a playoff round that will allow eight nations to qualify for the following year’s finals, while the current zone group competit- ion will continue underneath that.
“This is a complete game changer for the ITF and for tennis,” ITF president David Haggerty said.
“This new partnership will not only create a true World Cup of Tennis but will also unlock record levels of new investment for future generations of tennis players and fans around the world.”
Matches would consist of two singles rubbers and one doubles, over best-of-three sets.