Roger Federer took up with surprise the reform proposals of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for the Davis Cup.
The fact that Roger Federer will once again compete for Switzerland in the Davis Cup is considered unlikely – even though the “Maestro” left a back door open last autumn:”I have not yet officially resigned from the Davis Cup team.
As a 17-year-old young professional, Federer competed for the first time in the traditional national competition in April 1999. After many unsuccessful attempts, Stan Wawrinka finally won the title in 2014,”The Davis Cup and I, that was once a love story. At the beginning of my career, he was the greatest for me and the debut is one of my most beautiful memories,”said the 36-year-old in the retrospective.
Now Federer has also joined the current discussion on the reform plans of ITF President David Haggerty. The US-American would like to condense the Davis Cup into one week – from November 2019 18 teams will play for the ugliest salad bowl in the world.
Criticism came from all sides. The DTB leadership in particular strongly condemned Haggerty’s reform plans. Barbara Rittner, head of the German women’s tennis team and long-time head of the Fed Cup team, accused the ITF boss of “just squinting at money”, DTB vice-president Dirk Hordorff was outraged:”A competition is being created according to the show fight pattern”.
For Federer, however, the ideas are rather astonishing:”I’m surprised that this is the way things are planned – first and foremost because I don’t know any other Davis Cup format than the current one.
After the plans for a joint Davis Cup and Fed Cup final week at a neutral venue last year were shattered, Federer said in Monte Carlo on the fringes of the Laureus Gala that he did not expect anything new in this matter,”The time will show whether the new mode can prevail. I have heard many extremely positive and extremely negative opinions on this subject.”