Have you heard about this idea? Some of the top guys are suggesting that they replace the Davis Cup with a tennis world cup of sorts.
I have to say, I see their point. Davis Cup should be so much bigger than it is. If they moved over to a world cup kind of thing, it might be a bigger part of the sport.
He’s right. The format stinks, and the timing is horrible, which causes most of the top players skip it and relegates the whole thing to irrelevance. It definitely should not be every year, and the idea of doing it World Cup style is terrific. That would increase interest, I think, because as it is, half the teams are in the lower tier and don’t have a shot at the championship to begin with.
I think they could even call it Davis Cup still, just rework the whole thing and set it in one country at one period of time. It might even help the ever elusive “seasoning” that tennis needs.
The sport is way too demanding to have no off season.
I don’t mind if they change the name. “Tennis World Cup” might be more recognizable, a la the soccer equivalent and the World Baseball Classic, but that doesn’t matter to me. Making it every other year is just common sense and almost any other format would be better than what they are doing because the Davis Cup is scheduled around the four majors (and the Olympics when necessary), so the timing is really irregular and it’s forced to the less-interesting parts of the season. And you’re right, it would probably help establish a more reasonable length for the season. I’m reluctantly becoming convinced that they need to shorten it. I like starting with the Australian Open in January, but they need to taper things off after the U.S. Open. It’s too much. The problem is the ATP sucks as an organization for the players, and there are so many separate sponsors to negotiate with, none of whom are going to want to give up their events.