A path-breaking step

The decision to hold Davis Cup and Fed Cup finals together could be a significant change, feel experts

In a move that could shake up one of the sport’s biggest events, the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) board of directors has approved a plan to stage the final phases of the Davis Cup men’s team competition and the Fed Cup women’s team competition together the next three years.

The board also approved the first site for the new combined, annual event: Geneva, which was selected from a list of six finalists that included Turin, Wuhan, Miami and Copenhagen.

The combined finals would be staged indoors at an arena in the Palexpo exhibition center, which has a capacity of about 18,000, in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

“I look at this as the transformation of Davis Cup and Fed Cup with one of the most significant reforms in tennis for many years,” David Haggerty, the tennis federation’s president, said in an interview. “I think what we are doing is taking these two events and creating the World Cup of tennis.”

The decision comes at a tense and pivotal moment, with the ATP Tour considering a new men’s team competition of its own. The ITF board decision requires final approval by a two-thirds majority of the tennis federation’s full membership at its annual meeting, which will be in early August in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Haggerty said the combined event would bring together the Davis Cup final and either the Fed Cup final or the final two rounds of an expanded 16-team Fed Cup.

“We still need some more feedback from the Davis Cup and Fed Cup committees before we make that decision,” said Haggerty, who acknowledged some resistance to the combined event within the federation’s board.

“We had robust discussions,” he said. “I think the board came out feeling that change is necessary.”

The new event could last from five to nine days, depending on the format, and would be held in the Davis Cup final’s traditional time slot, in late November. Haggerty, a former president of the US  Tennis Association, said he saw the combined event as “a weeklong tennis festival” with “legend tennis, entertainment and maybe some junior activity” mixed in with the Fed Cup and Davis Cup matches.

“By putting the two properties together, we think this can give us the fifth major,” Haggerty said.

That very much remains to be seen. The Davis Cup, which began in 1900, is the premier team tennis competition for men. The Fed Cup, introduced in 1963 and initially known as the Federation Cup, is its counterpart for women. But both have struggled for traction in recent years, with top men’s players frequently skipping and criticizing the Davis Cup.

Haggerty and the ITF board hope to reverse that trend by generating increased buzz and revenue with the new event. The move comes after a board decision earlier this year to address player concerns by reducing Davis Cup singles matches from best-of-five sets to best-of-three sets. But fusing the two events is far from certain to lift the competitions to the degree that Haggerty hopes.

Expressing support

Steve Simon, chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, has expressed support for the plan.
“I think it is great, to be honest,” Simon said. “I think the more times our sport is played together, the better we do as a sport. At the highest level, which is at Grand Slam events, the sport is combined, and I think bringing men and women together is what separates us from the other sports. Conceptually, to do that makes a whole lot of sense.”

Martina Navratilova, who won the Fed Cup with her native Czechoslovakia and with the United States after becoming a naturalized U S citizen, expressed cautious support.

“Events...historically have been better and stronger when it’s both men and women playing together,” she said in a telephone interview. “That’s how the majors started thriving and became much bigger. I’m ambivalent about this because I know women can stand on their own, but it may be for the good of the game. This may be a great idea.”

Haggerty said he had received preliminary support from Chris Kermode, the chief executive of the ATP Tour. But the ATP could soon be in competition with the Davis Cup if it approves a new World Team Cup event that could be started as early as 2019 and would most likely be staged in what is now the off season.

It is unclear whether the ATP’s proposed new — and potentially lucrative — event would take place every year or every other year. But it could create an awkward situation in which a national team is crowned champion in November at the Davis Cup, and another is crowned champion in December at the ATP event.

But the more-compact ATP event could encourage leading men’s players to continue skipping the Davis Cup.

“I think by combining the men and women we really have a team competition that is different,” Haggerty said. “Davis Cup has more than 100 years of history; Fed Cup has 50 years. We have a great heritage, and we think this will resonate and get even stronger.”

It is uncertain, too, how the men’s players will react to being grouped with the women’s players in a Davis Cup setting.

“At times, there are some players on the men’s side who may feel that combined events may not be in their best interest,” Haggerty said. “But we’ll take everything into consideration and make sure the practice courts, the practice times, the locker rooms, the food, everything will be up to world-class standard so nobody will feel they are not getting the best possibility to have their own space.”

Several top men’s players, including Novak Djokovic, have expressed resistance to the Davis Cup moving to a neutral venue for the final.

The Davis Cup is traditionally played in one of the teams’ home countries. For now, the first three rounds of the competition will continue to be played on a home-and-away basis, but the ITF leadership believes that the switch to what Haggerty calls a “fixed venue” will better allow it to plan and promote the final. It also creates an opportunity to increase revenue.

There are concerns it could create a less partisan and more compelling atmosphere, but Haggerty emphasized that the choice of an easily accessible final venue for traveling fans was a big part of the federation board’s decision-making process.

He said one of the advantages of Geneva was its central location in Europe, “within a five-hour drive” of many of the current Davis Cup World Group nations. Haggerty said some of the increased revenue could be used to help facilitate or subsidize spectator travel from the finalist nations to Geneva.

“The players don’t want to play in front of empty stadiums, and we are very sensitive to that,” Haggerty said. “The one thing we have to insure is that we don’t lose that atmosphere in the stadium. These are our crown jewels. We have to handle them properly.”