Beautiful matches, a tenfold importance of the double, but also a convoluted formula, frustrations and too little atmosphere: arranged after a very criticized 2019 edition, the new Davis Cup, won on Sunday by Russia, has not yet convinced, and developments are to come.
In Madrid in 2019, Spain, by going all the way, had saved appearances in terms of atmosphere, while most of the meetings had taken place in anonymity and dismal silence. In 2021, the competition was dispersed into its group stage at three venues, with the idea being that three teams – Spain in Madrid, Italy in Turin and Austria in Innsbruck – could enjoy their home crowd.
Bad luck, Austria was confined three days before the games started due to COVID, and the Innsbruck matches took place in a grim vacuum.
In Madrid and Turin, however, “100,000 people attended the matches, which is an exceptional result,” said Eric Rojas, CEO of Kosmos Tennis, the subsidiary of the company Kosmos, which acquired on Sunday. the rights to organize the Davis Cup and changed its historic format in 2019.
“Even after the elimination of Spain (from the group stage, Editor’s note), the room continued to be busy. We have shown that it was a real World Cup of tennis, ”he insisted.
Century-old history
Yes, but precisely, the majority of actors and spectators regret the disappearance of the national team competition in its historic format more than a hundred years old.
The players have made up their minds, since it is a question of representing their country, like the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, winner of the Silver Salad in 2017: “For us, the excitement is the tracksuit. ‘of the France team, the pride we have in wearing it, the fact of representing France and going far in the competition, ”he said.
Novak Djokovic, he felt that it was necessary to change the formula, which posed in particular problems by taking place throughout the year in an already very full schedule. But the Serb is not quite satisfied with the news.
“To win the Davis Cup we need a doubles team that constantly plays together, otherwise every time it will be like climbing Everest,” commented the No1 in the world who has won all of his singles, without being able to take Serbia beyond the semi-finals.
Aware of the shortcomings of the new improved Davis Cup formula, the organizers have already announced a number of changes for the next edition.
“Kill the competition”
Thus, the final phase goes from 18 to 16 teams (in order to avoid clever calculations to determine the two best runners-up), 12 of which will play a play-off in the old format (four singles and one double, but in two winning sets instead of three).
The group stages will be dispersed in four cities, each hosting its national team and, from the quarterfinals to the final, the matches will be played in a neutral city yet to be defined.
“The lessons of 2019 have been learned. This five-city model is a simple, understandable format that is seen in many other world championships. It will give us the programming flexibility we need, ”argued David Haggerty, president of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which governs the competition.
The neutral city’s announcement for the knockout stage was to be made on Sunday morning at a hotel in Madrid. But at the last moment, the invitational event was canceled and replaced by a simple press conference at the competition venue, with an explanation of the new format, but no word on the famous host city.
In the meantime, a rumor has circulated with insistence that it is Abu Dhabi, where the tennis tradition is not legendary.
And the most virulent criticisms then burst among the participants, the palm going to the Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt.
“If they sell the soul of Davis Cup to the Middle East, […] they are really going to kill this competition ”, warned the former No1 in the world, winner of the Silver Salad in 1999 and 2003.