By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, September 26, 2018
The draw for the 2019 Davis Cup finals qualifying tournament presents intriguing match-ups; Argentina and Great Britain received wild cards into the finals.
Photo credit: Tennis Australia
The new Davis Cup format launches with some familiar rivalries.
The International Tennis Federation conducted the draw for the 2019 Davis Cup Finals Qualifier round, set for February 1-2, 2019.
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Switzerland will host Russia, the Czech Republic will host the Netherlands and traditional Davis Cup power Australia will try to launch a return to Davis Cup glory on home soil against Bosnia/Herzegovina.
Each qualifying tie will consist of four singles and one doubles match with all matches best-of-three sets.
The 12 winning nations from qualifying will join the four 2018 semifinalists—France, Croatia, Spain and the United States—as well as wild-card recipients Argentina and Great Britain in the 18-team, week-long 2019 Davis Cup finals.
The 12 losing nations will be relegated to zonal competition.
The first edition of the new Davis Cup final format will be staged November 18-24th, 2019.
February's qualifying ties are the only remnants of the traditional home-and-away ties that formed the foundation of Davis Cup's 118-year history.
ITF president David Haggerty asserts the new format will elevate Davis Cup to the status of a fifth Grand Slam.
The ITF says the 25-year, $3 billion deal it signed 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 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?
The new World Cup-style Davis Cup final may well also find itself competing for stars in a Cup-crowded field.
The global popularity of the Roger Federer-led Laver Cup staged to sell-out crowds at the O2 Arena in Prague last September and in Chicago last weekend has seemingly inspired the game's governing bodies to try to capitalize on the Cup craze. The third annual Laver Cup is set for September, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.
The ATP is aiming to relaunch its World Team Cup in Australia in January of 2020 alongside partner Tennis Australia, which opposed Davis Cup changes.
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."