By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, August 16, 2018
The ITF approved a 25-year, $3 billion deal with Kosmos that will transform the Davis Cup final into a one-week, World Cup-style finale.
Photo credit: British Tennis Facebook
An iconic competition will undergo radical reconstruction.
The 118-year-old Davis Cup is set for revolutionary reform after the International Tennis Federation today approved a plan that will create an 18-team, year-end World Cup-style Davis Cup final.
More: Twitter Up In Arms Over Davis Cup Changes
Voters from the 210-member national association ratified a plan spearheaded by ITF president David Haggerty and investment group Kosmos, headed by former FC Barcelona star Gerard Pique that will see 18 nations compete in a week-long Davis Cup finale each November.
The first edition of the new Davis Cup final format will be staged in either Madrid or Lille November 18-24th, 2019 with the host city to be announced in the coming weeks.
President Haggerty asserts the new format will elevate Davis Cup to the status of a fifth Grand Slam.
The new format is a game-changer, but will it revitalize Davis Cup or kill the spirit and tradition of the competition?
The new format virtually eliminates the traditional 16-team World Group format with home-and-away ties staged during four weekends spread out over the season, except for a 24-team qualifying round set for February, which will feature home-and-away ties.
“I am delighted that the nations have today voted to secure the long-term status of Davis Cup by BNP Paribas," ITF president David Haggery said in a statement. "By voting in favor of these reforms, we will be able to work with Kosmos to realize the huge potential of the competition and elevate it to new standards.
"This new event will create a true festival of tennis and entertainment which will be more attractive to players, to fans, to sponsors and to broadcasters."
The ITF says the 25-year, $3 billion deal with Kosmos will create a new player prize fund of $20 million, "elevating Davis Cup to Grand Slam prize money levels" and touts the partnership as creating "historic levels of investment into the global development of tennis through the ITF and its 210-member National Associations."
The 12 winners from February's qualifying will join four semifinalists from the previous year into the November Davis Cup final. In addition, two wild cards will be awarded, though the ITF did not clarify how those wild cards will be determined.
The Davis Cup finals will be held in a round robin format from Monday to Thursday, with the countries divided into six groups and each qualifying round consisting of three matches—two singles and one doubles—of best-of-three sets.
Champions of each group and the two best runners-up will reach the quarterfinals on Friday, while Saturday and Sunday will host the semifinals and the final.
The two worst qualified teams from the round robin stage will be relegated to the Zone Groups for the following year and the rest of the nations that did not qualify for the semifinals will have to participate in February's qualifying round the following season.
"In addition, the new revenues for nations that the event will generate will have a transformative effect on the development of tennis in all nations," Haggerty said. "Our mission is to ensure that this historic decision will benefit the next generation of players for decades to come."
The question is: Will top players be attracted enough to the new format and prize-money pool to forgo vacation and extend their seasons?
Skeptics say that while the longest running annual international team competition required some revisions, the ITF has gone too far.
Critics question why wasn't Fed Cup included in the new format?
Haggerty told Tennis Channel the ITF hopes to replicate the new Davis Cup format with Fed Cup, possibly as early as 2020.
And how come players, captains, coaches and fans weren't given a voice in the reformation?
Publicly, players have expressed disparate views over the new Davis Cup format.
Davis Cup hero Marin Cilic, who led Croatia to its second semifinal in the last three years, says “99.9 percent of the players” support the change because it will shorten the schedule.
Lucas Pouille clinched the 2017 Davis Cup for France and says he will boycott the new format.
"It would become an exhibition and I do not play for France as part of an exhibition. It would not be the same feeling at all,” Pouille said during the spring. "There is also a question of money and I do not see the point of going there if the tournament is held the last week of November."
Novak Djokovic, who helped lead Serbia to its first Davis Cup championship in the 2010 final contested in his hometown of Belgrade, believes the current structure is broken.
The Wimbledon champion says change is not only beneficial, but essential to ensure player participation.
"Obviously the Davis Cup format, as it is, doesn't work anymore," Djokovic said. "There are not many top players that are participating in Davis Cup for many previous years. We have seen a few of us managing to play for our countries. Throughout the whole year, it's a big challenge because of the schedule."
Officials for Tennis Australia and Tennis Europe told Reuters they had concerns over lack of transparency for financing, which will require Kosmos guaranteeing about $120 million annually.
A German Tennis Federation exec believes the new Davis Cup final—played after the ATP Finals in November—will "kill the Davis Cup" because players have already dispersed all over the world for recovery at the end of a long season.
"It will kill the Davis Cup," DTB vice-president Dirk Hordorff told BBC Sport. "You cannot make an event which is more or less an exhibition, after the Masters in November, and expect the players to come. "We all know how many players are injured and unavailable to play in the Masters, so to have another event after that doesn't make any sense if you want to have the players.
"The Davis Cup is the crown jewel of the ITF, and if you change something then you have to have a clear concept and a clear contract, but even board members, regional federations and big nations asked questions and they don't get the answers."
The global popularity of the Roger Federer-led Laver Cup staged to sell-out crowds at the O2 Arena in Prague last September has seemingly inspired the game's governing bodies to try to capitalize on the Cup craze.
The ATP is aiming to relaunch its World Team Cup in Australia in January of 2020.
The new World Team Cup will feature 24 teams, $15 million in prize money plus ranking points. Presumably, it will be staged on the same surface as the Australian Open making it an attractive tune-up event for some stars who have played Hopman Cup, Kooyong or Tie Break Tens exhibitions Down Under.
Andy Murray, who led Great Britain to the 2015 Davis Cup, asserts scheduling two team competitions within weeks of each other will not be healthy for the sport and suggested the ATP's plans may have fueled the ITF's Davis Cup decision.
"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."