Andy Murray says Davis Cup change is necessary to sustain the 118-year-old competition, but envisions potential conflict with the ATP's World Team Cup.
Murray, who accounted for all three points sealing Great Britain's Davis Cup final conquest of host Belgium in 2015, said he supports the International Tennis Federation's plan to revise the current Davis Cup format.
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ITF president David Haggerty spearheads proposed reforms which will create a one week World Cup-style Davis Cup final staged at a neutral site each November.
The plan eliminates the traditional 16-team Davis Cup World Group playing home-and-away ties over four weekends throughout the year and replace with an 18-team competition played out over one week each November.
"One thing I think is for sure is that Davis Cup needed to change, because pretty much all of the players that I have spoken to love playing Davis Cup," Murray told the media in Cincinnati. "But then lots of players don't commit to playing it. So that would suggest there is something not right, whether that's a scheduling thing, you know, the fact it comes after slams, you know, changing surfaces, you know, like is straight after a slam. And normally the Grand Slams come at the end of quite an intense stretch."
The three-time Grand Slam champion envisions conflict with the ATP's World Team Cup.
The ATP is aiming to relaunch the World Team Cup in Australia in January, 2020.
The new World Team Cup will feature 24 teams, $15 million in annual prize money plus ranking points.
Murray suggested one reason the ITF is eager to push Davis Cup reforms through this week is to get a head start on the ATP in launching the revised competition.
"I don't think having like two team competitions six weeks apart, I don't see that as being a positive thing," Murray said. "But, I mean, the ATP and the ITF are not working together on it, so it's obviously most likely both are going to end up having, because if the ITF, I guess if they waited, you know, to take a little bit more time over things and the ATP go ahead with their event the beginning of the year in Australia and that's a big success, then that's very negative for the, you know, for the ITF."
Murray also questioned why Davis Cup changes can't change back if the new format proves to be unsuccessful.
"I have said this many times, I'm also not against it," Murray said. "I don't see why you can't make a change, and if it doesn't work and the players don't like it and the fans don't like it, you can always go back.
"It doesn't have to be permanent. But something needed to change. I think if it was every couple years maybe would have been a good start potentially."
Photo credit: Corinne Dubreuil/Davis Cup Facebook