By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday, November 27, 2022
Since the Davis Cup modified its format in 2019, making the finals a bunch affair with a number metropolis, eliminating best-of-five matches, and making ties better of three with doubles as a decider, many have voiced robust unfavourable opinions on the path of the competitors.
Today, after falling within the last to Canada, Aussie captain Lleyton Hewitt, one of many competitors’s biggest warriors, expressed views on the truth that doubles, the calling card of some nations, doesn’t even come into play in some ties.
He was requested how he felt about the truth that 4 units (with none doubles) may resolve a Davis Cup Final, whereas previous to 2019, 4 units won’t be sufficient to resolve one singles match.
“Everyone knows my feelings,” Hewitt stated, earlier than clarifying that now isn’t actually the fitting time to provide constructive criticism. “I don’t think now is the time to talk about it.”
Nevertheless, Hewitt expressed sympathy for the Dutch workforce, and others who pleasure themselves on having stellar doubles pairings.
“Coming here this week, I felt disappointed for the Dutch team, for example,” he stated. “You know, they’ve got two quality doubles players, and they do all the hard work all year to come and perform in the so-called biggest stage of the year, and they don’t get the chance to play a match. I thought that’s a failing in this concept the whole time, and no one is listening.
“So I can talk till I’m blue in the face, but nothing’s changing right now. We just keep putting Band-Aids – well, we don’t, but certain people put Band-Aids on problems. It’s not fixing the problem.”
Hewitt referenced the Mark Woodforde and Tood Woodbridge, Davis Cup stalwarts for the inexperienced and gold again within the day.
“I came up playing with the best doubles team in the world, the Woodies, at the time,” he stated. They come into this format and they do not get to play a match? And they’ve made {that a} large precedence? I do not suppose that is proper.”
The adjustments made in 2019 had been made for myriad causes. To assist entice higher-ranked gamers (and all gamers) to decide to the competitors was a predominant precedence, with the considering that making ties extra digestible and fewer bodily demanding would foster extra participation.
But there have been negative effects, equivalent to diluting the doubles and eradicating the drama that used to return from having ties linger over three days with doubles center-staged on Saturday.
HAGGERTY – WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH THE FORMAT
For the file, ITF president David Haggerty believes the competitors is the place it must be within the present second. He says the gamers take pleasure in the truth that they don’t have to spend 4 weekends throughout the season, and that the bodily calls for positioned on the gamers are much less. It should be famous that the ATP season is packed, and all gamers are overworked on tour, when it comes to play and journey. It’s a grind, and the Davis Cup solely makes it tougher. This is why the brand new format was created, and that’s the reason organizers wish to keep it up.
“I think just to reinforce, I think that we are very, very happy with the format and the changes that we have now,” he stated. “It doesn’t mean that sometime in the future we couldn’t consider, but we feel the most important thing is to stabilize. The players like this. They have told us that. They like the two singles and the one doubles. It works at the time of the seasons that we play.”
The new Davis Cup is quick and livid, however maybe an excessive amount of so. But allow us to do not forget that the previous format was relentlessly complained about till organizers had no alternative however to vary it.
There could also be no going again, and maybe returning to the previous format could be a mistake – however possibly there’s a compromise that might doubtlessly fulfill a bigger proportion of followers who now really feel that the competitors has been gutted past restore.
While many pine for dwelling and away ties on each Davis Cup weekend. Kosmos, which owns the Davis Cup, and the ITF, are extra desirous about having the occasion take form extra just like the World Cup, with worldwide followers flying to a number metropolis to expertise the occasion.
It hasn’t precisely labored but. In Spain, which has hosted the ultimate since 2019, solely 21 % of ticket consumers had been from exterior the nation.
“If you take a look at the attendance these days, it’s quite good,” stated Enric Rojas, CEO of Kosmos. “I think that one thing that we must improve, well, must or we should improve, is that this is the World Cup of tennis. We really want to be a really international event having as many international fans as possible.
“So I gave the data of having 21% of people outside of Spain. That, for me, is the biggest point to be improved. If we can get, I don’t know, about 50/50 or something like that, it happens in many other sports around the world, that would be great.”