With the reintroduction of the World Team Cup, ATP is in direct competition with the plans of the World Tennis Federation, the ITF.
Chris Kermode, the head of the ATP players’ association, discreetly continued to play the ball: Tennis Australia. The federation from the fifth continent was and still is the driving force behind the World Team Cup, which is to be revived at the beginning of 2020 after a break of eight years.
With 24 teams, with ATP points, with a total prize money of 15 million US dollars. The orientation is bigger, more serious and more attractive for the players than at the legendary event in Düsseldorf’s Rochus Club due to the award of the world ranking points.
The scheduling conflicts with the event in Doha, the last hurdle that had to be overcome, have apparently been clarified.
But this makes the question all the more exciting as to the future of the Davis Cup. ITF President David Haggerty is planning a similar format for the oldest team competition in tennis, after the end of the tennis season. Which didn’t inspire much enthusiasm among the professionals.
Not at Tennis Australia either. They want the Davis Cup to continue in its current form, but at the same time they are building up the second front against the ITF alongside the Laver Cup (second event in Chicago this September) with the World Team Cup.
The composition of the 24 teams has not yet been determined: Are there possibly two representatives from countries such as the USA, Spain or France with numerous top players? Or will there actually be a meeting of 24 nations at which constellations like in Austria are also conceivable: a top ten member, Dominic Thiem, forms a delegation with a player who is classified outside the best 100 places in the world.
The variant with two teams from one country is well known in Australia: This variant is used from time to time in the Laver Cup.