Davis Cup proposal gets mixed reviews
The Australians are surprised. The Brits are skeptical. The French are downright angry.
“They have just killed the Davis Cup,” French tennis player Nicolas Mahut said in reaction to bold plans to transform the 118- year- old competition into a one-week, 18-nation World Cup of Tennis.
The International Tennis Federation is trying to bring some glamour and relevance to the team event, as well as lure back top players who often choose to skip Davis Cup matches amid a crowded tennis calendar.
In this latest attempted revamp, the World Cup of Tennis would be played in one location over seven days in the traditional week of the Davis Cup final in November, rather than across four weekends in February, July, September and November. There would be a total purse of US$20 million.
“The essence of this historic competition is to play away or at home,” Mahut, a member of France’s Davis Cup- winning team last year, told Fr e n c h newspaper L’Equipe. “I was the first to say we needed to reform it — but not to destroy it.”
Proposals for the World Cup of Tennis have been devised in conjunction with investment group Kosmos, which was founded by soccer player Gerard Pique.
Pique presented the proposal to the ITF board in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday, and ITF president David Haggerty told The Associated Press that Pique has had a “positive” response from top players like Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.
Those two players have yet to comment publicly on the plans, but second-ranked Rafael Nadal has been quoted by Spanish newspaper Marca as saying: “It’s a good initiative and it could work.”
Craig Tiley, chief executive of Tennis Australia, said his organization was “taken by surprise by the announcement.”
“As one of the founding nations of Davis Cup, we have a lot of unanswered questions,” Tiley said.
“Will this proposal effectively extend the season for a large section of the playing group? What are the players’ thoughts generally? Does this ultimately end the home- and- away nature of the current competition? There’s j ust so much we don’t know.”
The ITF said the proposal, which was unanimously endorsed by its board, is “subject to further development” before it is submitted at the body’s annual general meeting in Florida in August. It needs approval by a twothirds majority.