Extra cities sought to host Davis Cup

LONDON: The 2021 Davis Cup Finals will be held over 11 days rather than seven and will almost certainly be staged across three cities, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) confirmed yesterday.

The changes proposed by the ITF's event partner Kosmos Tennis, the Spanishbased investment firm which is pumping in $US3 billion ($NZ4.2 billion) over 25 years, were agreed by the ITF Board.

This year's event is scheduled for November

25December 5.

The ITF confirmed that two more European cities are being sought to share the staging of the 2021 finals with Madrid, which hosted the first edition of the revamped competition in 2019.

Another change is to have the finals trimmed from 18 to 16 teams from 2022.

``We want to make it better for the players, better for the fans and better for the teams,' ' Kris Dent, ITF Senior Executive Director, Professional Tennis, told Reuters.

``People love the idea of the best teams in the world coming together for one event, but seven days, especially the day after the ATP Finals, it's just not possible, so these changes we think will make a great competition even greater.''

The 121yearold men's team event underwent a major revamp in 2019, when the seasonlong home and away tie format was replaced by a football World Cuptype format with the top 18 nations battling for the title at Madrid's Caja Magica in November.

While there was praise for the new event which ended with Rafa Nadal leading Spain to victory over Canada in the final, the logistics of playing 25 ties, each consisting of two singles and a doubles, on three courts in seven days was challenging.

One tie between the United States and Italy ended at 4am local time.