For a long time, Indians followed tennis with only two competitions in mind — Wimbledon and the Davis Cup. No two tennis spectacles have had more airtime on Doordarshan — when it was still the go-to channel — than these.
But come mid-August and the Davis Cup, as we have known it for 118 years, may never be the same again. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) will meet in Orlando, Florida, from August 13 to 16 to vote on the sweeping reforms designed to pull the tournament out of its perceived anachronism.
What are the proposals?
To replace the current four-weekend format with a one-week, 18-team, single-venue event called The World Cup of Tennis to be played after the season-ending ATP World Tour finals in November. Nations will compete in a round-robin league in three groups of six prior to a knockout stage starting at the quarterfinals. Each tie will comprise two singles and one doubles match, each a best-of-three-tie-break-set affair. The teams which fail to make the last eight will enter a playoff against Zonal Group teams. ITF president David Haggerty is the brain behind the move which is being bankrolled by investment group Kosmos, founded by Barcelona star Gerard Pique and Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani. The partnership is worth $3 billion over 25 years.
Why are they being pushed through?
With three of the four rounds being held in the week immediately after a Major or the Tour Finals, the stars don’t want to travel continents and play long-drawn matches, goes the theory. Haggerty believes the money on offer could be transformative too. Tennis suffers from a multitude of governing bodies — the ITF, the ATP, the WTA and the individual Slams. The Davis Cup is the biggest income generator for the ITF, and according to Haggerty the new format can ensure as much as $20 million in prize money each year (roughly half the amount a Major provides) and also leave enough to develop the game worldwide. The threat from the hugely successful Laver Cup isn’t to be underestimated. Played as a Europe vs. Rest of the World match-up, it attracted big stars and unlike the Davis Cup ensured that the tie would be alive till the third and final day by awarding double the points for a win on the second day and triple on the third. Last we heard, the ATP has announced the ATP World Team Cup, in partnership with Tennis Australia, from 2020.
Has the tennis community warmed to the idea?
The top stars don’t seem turned off by it. Rafael Nadal even said, “It could work.” Part of the reason could be the money. There is widespread belief that the big players no longer have money as a consideration, especially when it involves an incursion into the off-season. But the lucrative International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) was played in November with Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Nadal all part of it. “Matches home and away and playing amidst partisan crowds is the essence of Davis Cup. But, on a global scale, tennis is a relatively small sport money-wise. So you can’t close your eyes when there is big money on offer,” said Mahesh Bhupathi, IPTL’s founder and India’s current Davis Cup captain. “It may extend the tour, but it does give you rest in between,” opined Rohan Bopanna. “Right now players play a minimum of three weeks. This is just going to be one week.”
What do the purists have to say?
They are livid, and that’s putting it mildly. A Davis Cup stripped of all the characteristics that made it great — home-court advantage, raucous and partisan crowds, best-of-five sets with no tie-breaks in the decider — is not for them. “The end of the Davis Cup. How sad. They sold the soul. Sorry, Mr. Davis,” said Frenchman Yannick Noah, who won the Cup as captain in 2017. “Call it whatever you want, but not the Davis Cup,” said Anand Amritraj. “If they are going to change the whole format to make two or three top guys happy, it’s bad. If it’s going to put more money into their pockets, it is not worth it. Just like all the greats before them, these players will be gone and forgotten. Tennis today makes superstars out of three or four players. If they don’t play, nobody will watch. They have built the whole sport around them and that is a big mistake. The new idea will just further that.”
Is there a middle path?
After the hue and cry, the ITF has decided to pit 24 teams in home-and-away ties next February, with the 12 winners joining the four semifinalists from the previous year along with two wild cards for the November tournament. Some like Somdev Devvarman felt a reduction in the number of weeks could help. “We have a lot of mandatory events on the Tour. So one cup does make it easy. But a way can be found. Look at how football players deal with playing the league, Champions League, FA Cup, etc.” Amritraj called for a throwback to the 1970s when the world was divided into four zones — Asian, American and European A and B. “The four Zonal winners play the semifinals. That way, players don’t have to travel far, with the top stars possibly coming out only for the semifinals and final. They would only have to give up two weekends and all countries, big and small, would be part of one competition.”
What does this mean for India?
For now, nothing changes. But if it beats Serbia away in September’s playoff tie, it will enter the World Group and, subject to the reforms being passed, could be one of the 24 nations competing next February. There isn’t enough clarity on that just yet, however. The Zonal matches — where India has been playing for the past six years — will continue to be held across three different weeks, although, starting 2018, even these were reduced to best-of-three-tie-break-set matches. India’s come-from-behind 3-2 win over China in April was the country’s first experience of this. The change perhaps even suits India, as the new crop of players has negligible experience of five-set matches; they seldom make it to the Majors. Curiously Anil Khanna, Indian tennis’ most powerful man, sits on the ITF’s 14-member Board of Directors, and Haggerty has maintained all along that the proposed changes have been unanimous.
