Davis Cup overhaul wins approval from tennis officials
ORLANDO, FLA. — The International Tennis Federation’s bid to radically revamp the Davis Cup competition was ratified Thursday morning at its annual general meeting after months of debate and division over the proposal.
The changes received 71 per cent of the votes, clearing the two-thirds majority required to pass.
While nearly every tennis stakeholder believes that the 118-year-old Davis Cup needs to evolve, this vote offered a chance for a wholesale restart, creating a format nearly unrecognizable from the current one.
Instead of a series of matches scattered throughout the year around the world, the late rounds of the new competition would be held in one week, bringing 18 teams to one neutral site for round-robin and knockout rounds.
The proposal, spearheaded by ITF president David Haggerty, was backed by a $3 billion commitment over 25 years from Kosmos, a European investment group.
Haggerty and other tennis officials believed Davis Cup needed an overhaul because tennis’s biggest stars did not regularly participate and the event did not generate enough global interest and revenue.
Grand Slam federations were split on the vote: France and the United States voted for it, while Australia and Britain voted against it. Those countries held the most power, with 12 votes each in the ITF’s weighted system.
Many countries did not make their final decisions until the days and even hours before Thursday’s vote.
The Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body for the sport in Britain, announced its opposition to the measure Wednesday afternoon. That decision marked a split from the All England Club, the host of Wimbledon, which had voiced support for it.
The vote, like all debates and presentations before it, was held in secret at the annual general meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando.
Though the breakdown of votes by country will not be revealed, trends could be observed through interviews with the leaders of various federations.
Federations in Africa and the Americas were poised to vote unanimously in favour of the measure.
Along with Australia, Europe anchored the opposition to the reform. Britain’s dissent was joined by Germany.
There was also dissent across Central and Southern Europe, with Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia leaning against the measure.
More than geographic, however, the divisions were economic. Smaller federations expressed eagerness for the infusion of money promised by the Kosmos deal, thinking it could be their lifeline to developing talent.