ITF approves revamp of Davis Cup format
18 nations will now compete in week-long round-robin tournament
>> ORLANDO: World tennis chiefs on Thursday approved a radical Davis Cup revamp championed by Barcelona star Gerard Pique that will overhaul the 118-year-old competition, condensing the annual worldwide showpiece into an 18-team, weeklong event.
The shake-up for the men’s team tournament received 71.43 percent support from about 120 delegates at the International Tennis Federation annual meeting in Orlando, well ahead of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
Kosmos, an investment group led by Pique with Japanese and Chinese support, will spend US$3 billion over 25 years on the new event, with a European host for 2019 expected to be announced later this month.
“I think Davis Cup has untapped potential,” Pique said. “We had to bring this competition again to the top of the tennis world. This is what we expect.
“Now we have a lot of work to do, with the federations, with the players. We want to know what the players want and make the best world possible.”
The current Davis Cup format is a knockout event played in February, July, September and November at home and away venues around the globe, best-of-five match ties following Grand Slam events until the final round.
Many top players have skipped it in recent years to ease their schedule.
The reform plan will create November finals with 18 teams: 12 winners from 24-team home and away qualifying ties in February, the previous year’s four semi-finalists and two wild-card nations.
Round-robin groups of three would send six group winners and two runners-up into knockout round play-offs.
The finals would feature two singles matches and one doubles match each day, all cut to best-of-three sets.
ITF president David Haggerty supported the changes despite calls by some that it would mean the death of the Davis Cup, with Britain, Germany and Australia among those opposing the plan.
“For us, the result is a bitter disappointment which has initially left us stunned,” said German federation president Ulrich Klaus.
Pique spoke to the assembly and tried to heal the divide, saying, “To the ones that voted against we’ll try to prove that we can deliver the greatest Davis Cup competition ever.”
Also backing the reconstituted event is US billionaire Larry Ellison, who hopes his Indian Wells tennis facility could host the 2021 edition of the finals.
Haggerty said the arrangement would provide about $25 million annually for national tennis associations to invest in grassroots level support, with the United States, France and Spain among those thought to support the move.
Aussie Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt calls the plan a “money grab” and Davis Cup legend John Newcombe said it was “a recipe for the death of the Davis Cup as we know it.”