The spectacular plans for a Davis Cup reform include more than just flaws. The competition is robbed of its brand essence. There is already fierce resistance:”Rest in peace, old Davis Cup”is the protest motto.
David Haggerty is a man who likes to look cheerfully into the world. The president of the World Tennis Federation ITF always smiles, even when it hurts. He also smiled when his member nations taught him a bitter defeat at last year’s assembly in Ho Chi Minh City. At that time Haggerty wanted to push through a joint final week for the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup in a neutral place, but the American did not get the necessary votes and put the project off the agenda. Later, the tennis boss also failed to reduce the Davis Cup matches to just two sets of wins – each time the vote of no confidence against Haggerty had to do with his decisive backroom diplomacy, with secrecy, with snubbed associations, which he never involved in his decision-making process.
Now, however, Haggerty, a formerly only moderately successful manager of the tennis equipment industry, has crowned his spirit of reform with a so-called reform that leads to nothing more than robbing and abolishing the Davis Cup of its brand essence. The World Federation wants to replace the previous mode of home or away games – and thus also the tingling fan experience – with a tournament week in November, presumably at first somewhere in Asia, with the help of massive state subsidies locally.
18 nations are to participate in the “World Cup of Tennis”, including the 16 nations from the world group. It is to be played first in group format, then in knockout format. The ITF’s partner is to become a holding company called Kosmos, whose founder and frontman is the Spanish soccer professional Gerard Pique – this consortium promises tennis officials no less than three billion dollars for the next 25 years of the deal. A “Festival of Tennis and Entertainment” will be the “World Cup”, said Haggerty.
The ITF chieftain’s first greatest, but ambivalent success was to have caught many, even influential people in world tennis on the wrong foot with this suggestion. Neither the Players’ Council of the professional trade union ATP nor important federation nations were consulted, no wonder that on Tuesday a European head of an association found it indignant that the ITF had quietly and secretly sold the “soul of the Davis Cup”. With his plans, Haggerty has created an “even greater disaster than ever before”, according to Hordorff, instead of a mild reform that takes up the history and tradition of the Davis Cup, a competition will be created according to the show battle pattern.
Of course, the Davis Cup has lost its relevance and support in recent years, and many top players stayed away from it or played sporadically. The calendar of dates in tennis is overcrowded, too tiring at a time when matches are becoming ever more intense and challenging. Many people also like to run after the fast money in show fights, despite all the strains in the work programme. However, there were broadly supported plans to streamline the competition, to organise it only every two years. Or to organize over two years, with fewer appointments per season. But Haggerty’s plans had nothing to do with the Davis Cup at all, criticizes one such as former world-renowned oilman-first Jewgeni Kafelnikov:”This is a whistle on tradition. France’s Davis Cup hero Paul-Henri Mathieu, once the legendary match winner of the final duel against Russia, twittered:”Quiet in peace, old Davis Cup.”
The new deal for world tennis is “groundbreaking”, according to Pique, the football superstar and official sponsor. He shouldn’t be embarrassed about big words either, it’s, despite all that PR ringing, a risky investment, a poker game. One big question remains: Can this “World Cup” really be an attraction for many notoriously overloaded players – with an idea for a date at the end of the season. Up to now, the series in the travelling circus has stopped for most of the players at the end of October, and now the holidays would have to wait three weeks longer.”For most of the players, the joy will be kept within narrow limits,”says an ATP professional at the tournament in Dubai, under the guise of anonymity,”in mid-November in Asia, you can only shake your head. There will be a lot of cancellations, money or no money.”
In fact, the early autumnal trip to Asia is already part of the tormenting, more than unloved obligatory program of the professionals. After the competitions in September and early October, there is now the prospect of having to endure the change in climate and time again in November, for the top stars the World Cup week would even come directly after the ATP World Championships in London. Spicy enough that the Kosmos holding company around Pique had previously negotiated in vain with the ATP for a new World Team Cup based on the Düsseldorf model – before the project was sold as a Davis Cup radical renewal.”All this has no substance whatsoever. And nobody knows exactly where the money is supposed to come from,”says Hordorff, the DTB man.
In an ironic tweet, UK former head of the national women’s tennis team, Judy Murray, pointed out another inconsistency of the reform plan in an ironic tweet:”I’m waiting for a plan for the Fed Cup transformation,”wrote Andy Murray’s mother, appalled to find out that the World Federation was concentrating purely on a plan for the men’s tennis competition. After all, ITF boss Haggerty had planned a joint season finale for men and women a year ago. According to an ATP top official, one thing is remarkable about the American, however:”The speed and agility to change his plans”.