Britain draw Kazakhstan and Holland in Davis Cup revamp
The Lawn Tennis Association should be delighted by Great Britain’s favourable Davis Cup draw, given the vast sums on offer to both players and federations at the newlook finals week in November.
Each team’s members will share a pot of US$600,000 (£469,000) for showing up, which grows to $1million (£781,000) at the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, the federations will earn a minimum of $300,000 (£234,000) apiece, growing to $600,000 for nations who reach the knockout stage.
Great Britain were seeded at No5 out of the 18 nations invited to the finals week, partly as a result of winning the competition in 2015. This helped them earn winnablelooking round-robin ties yesterday against Kazakhstan and Holland.
There has been extensive discussion as to whether the leading names will show up in Madrid for the finals week, which runs from Nov 18-24, and thus lies at least three weeks outside the regular season. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev have already made sceptical noises, perhaps because they are all keener on rival team competitions such as the Laver Cup or the first ATP Cup.
But with such hefty sums on offer, only the most successful are likely to feel that they can turn down a Davis Cup appearance.
Whether this business model is sustainable is another question. It is understood that TV rights are not being snapped up with huge enthusiasm, in the British market at any rate. Meanwhile, the intervention of the International Tennis Federation’s new partners Kosmos has not been universally welcomed, and ITF president David Haggerty stands accused of suppressing dissent over the issue.
The Daily Telegraph understands that one of the ITF’S own board members – Anil Khanna, who represents the Asian Tennis Federation – has brought an action to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, complaining that anyone who says anything critical about the new Davis Cup is being threatened with removal from the board.