London | Davis Cup to join ATP calendar

It was announced on Monday that the Davis Cup will become part of the ATP Tour calendar from next year following an agreement between the governing body of men’s tennis, the Association of Tennis Players, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Spanish tournament promoters Kosmos.

The decision follows the failure of the ATP Cup, a joint venture between Tennis Australia and the ATP, which has been replaced last week by the United Cup, a mixed-sex $15 million event featuring teams from 18 nations which will launch next year’s season in Australia.
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That new tournament reflects the growing co-operation between the men’s and women’s tours and the ITF who have moved towards streamlining the governance of the game since the COVID crisis disrupted the 2020 season.

“Our focus is always on creating the best possible experiences for our fans and players,” ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said in a statement on Monday reported by Reuters.

“Delivering compelling international team competitions that dovetail with the year-round calendar and continue to innovate is a vital part of that.

“The Davis Cup has an incredibly rich history and we’re excited to see this important new alliance drive the event forward from 2023.”

This year’s Davis Cup Finals involved 16 nations competing in four groups at venues in Bologna in Italy, the UK’s Glasgow, Germany’s Hamburg and Valencia in Spain which were completed in September

The knockout stages will be held between 21st and 27th of November in Malaga, Spain.

The event, inaugurated in 1900, was controversially revamped from a traditional “home-and-away tie” format three years ago after the ITF did a lucrative deal with Spanish investment group Kosmos.

The ATP Cup, which was launched as a rival to that tournament, ran for three years but despite big prize money and high-profile names, failed to attract crowds and was badly hit by the restrictions imposed for the Covid crisis.

ITF President David Haggerty said the agreement with the ATP would strengthen the importance of team competition and the Davis Cup’s “unique role in elite men’s professional tennis”.

The current champions are Russia who have been banned from team competitions by the ITF following the country’s illegal invasion of the Ukraine earlier this year and the resultant on-ging war.