Status quo of Davis-Cup?

The quarter-finals of the century old men’s Inter-nation Tennis championships -- the Davis-Cup was worked out last weekend.

Davis Cup steered the popularity of the game of Tennis through lean periods of the 20th century which included two world wars and lived up to the objectives of its founder the American diplomat Dwight Davis. His objective was to create a platform with sprts for nations to foster activities of peace. He was highly successful in his endeavor and Davis-Cup, where the best of the best players competed, achieved a global appeal and became the model for many other sports.

Up to the last decade of the nineteen hundreds the appeal of Davis-Cup stayed high. To be in the national team of Davis–Cup became the dream of every male player. This seems to have waned to a point of making Davis-Cup a non- significant entity of Tennis in 2015. The ITF, an amateur body has the sole rights for the event but with professional Tennis taking a firm footing in the world, Davis Cup is of lesser appeal to the ‘top-guns’ of the game.

In the countries which play in groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 of DavisCup, it is the only link they have to international Tennis. Most of the countries in these groups do not have ATP ranked players and often survive with one good player in the team. This helps to keep the sport alive in the country and no more.

New Identity of Tennis

Davis Cup is played in many tiers and in global zones from group 2 downwards to 5. Only the World Group and Group 1 are played as global events. Others are in a regional zonal system. The quarter-final round of the World Group was worked out last weekend. Only one player from the top ten played in them. It is England’s Andy Murray. Where were the others? Most of the top ten players did not sign up into their national teams this year. Their concentration is on the individual world ranking events for prestige and earnings.

Professionalism is the main reason behind Davis-Cup’s loss of popularity among the players. Before the open-era that is up to 1969, professionals were barred from playing any big championships. This left good players ‘beggars’ after their competition careers ended. There were instances where professionals played for -/25 US dollar cents for a point on the streets of major cities. I recall Andres Gimeno of Spain, I believe, playing a match of this nature and was reported in the popular Tennis magazine – World Tennis.

With the open-era which began in 1969, prize money appeared in small amounts and players got accommodation and food during the event. This too has hit a high point after the formation of the two professional bodies - WTA for women and ATP for men, calling the shots. By demand events were made to give big prize money by the professional bodies. Wimbledon singles winners this year got 1.8 million sterling pounds each for the title. The ‘money game’ identity is making the global appeal of Tennis suffer. Most of the events are not in the league to raise that kind of cash. What more, the two professional bodies have also classified events on the size of the prize money. It is adding more issues in the global platform.

England Vs France

The 2015 Davis-Cup quarter-finals between France and England was played on grass court in London’s Queen’s Club. None of the players were very comfortable and the French were handicapped playing on grass. The host country has the choice of surface and for the advantage England chose the grass court. It is the only tie in the four quarter-finals in which there was a top ten ranked player.

England won the event with the win of the ‘first reverse singles’ in a close match between world ranked 11 Gilles Simon and Andy Murray ranked 3. Gilles, not mastering the grass court foot work slipped five times during the match and finally at 2/1 to Murray in the fourth set, damaged his left ankle badly. As a good sportsman, he continued to play till the end giving England the decisive lead in the tie.

Australia Vs Kazakhstan

This turned out to be a very close tie. This too was played on a newly made Grass court in Darwin to everyone’s surprise. According to Wally Masur, the Australian captain, the grass dried very quickly and caused an uneven bounce. The two youngsters who played for Australia, Nick Krygios and Thanasi Kokkinnakis got lost on this new grass in the two opening singles. With that Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushin and Aleksandr Nedovyesov gave their country a solid 2-0 lead.

In the other two quarter finals – Argentina had a convincing win against Serbia in Buenos Aires. Djokovic did not sign up into this year’s Davis Cup. The tie between Belgium and Canada was won by Belgium at 5-0. Here too Canada could not get the services of their two famous players Milos Raonic ranked 8 and Vasek Pospisil ranked 25.

Lebanon - Sri Lanka relegation round

Sri Lanka having lost the first round tie against the Philippines had to play a relegation round to stay in the present group 2 against Lebanon which also had the same fate as ours. Sri Lanka beat Lebanon in Colombo in a close tie.

Harshana Godamanne once again turned out to be the man who won the tie. Sharmal Dissanayake won the first singles when Lebanese player Jad Ballout conceded the match due to sickness. At that time Dissanayake was leading two sets to love and 2/1. Harshana not playing regular competition started off with adjustment issues to pace against 17 year old Hady Habib. Once that adjustment was made, Harshana made a quick and clean work of dispatching his opponent.

The doubles match went to five sets and what looked like a certain win for Sri Lanka in the fifth set with a lead of 2/1 turned out to be a defeat at 3/6. In the reverse singles Habib leveled the score winning the reverse singles match against Dissanayake and Harshana beat Giovani Samaha securing the tie for Sri Lanka.

Status of Davis Cup

After India, Kazakhstan is the second Asian country to make an impact in Davis Cup. India reached the Davis-Cup finals in the 1960’s. Kazakhstan has two players in the top 100 of the world. They have been in the World Group consistently for a while.

The team Lebanon had for their tie against Taipei earlier this year was completely different to that of the team they played against Sri Lanka. It is complicating to understand why countries in group 2 have problems in getting the best players to play. If at this level Davis- Cup is insignificant, it would be difficult to reverse its popularity again. If this trend continues Davis Cup could soon become an event of the past. Maybe the event has too little significance in modern Tennis altogether. There is a whisper that very soon ATP will come out with an alternative to Davis Cup.