LONDON: The International Tennis Federation (ITF), the sport's global governing body, has deferred plans to combine the finals of the Davis Cup and Fed Cup national team competitions into a World Cup of Tennis for another year.
As per the proposals ITF had put forth last month, starting 2018, the World Cup of Tennis finals was to have seen the men's Davis Cup and women's Fed Cup play their finale's at the same time in Geneva, in a bid to raise the profile of both competitions.
Recent years have seen several of the game's biggest stars sit out of the year-long team contests to focus on Grand Slams and other tournaments.
On Thursday, the ITF said it would not put the motion to a vote at its annual general meeting next month in Vietnam and instead wait until 2018 to "allow more time to reach alignment".
ITF president David Haggerty said: “We promised change and are already delivering change with a significant series of reforms. Taking another year to build consensus around the World Cup of Tennis Finals will allow us to finalise an even stronger recommendation to the AGM. This decision shows that we do not act unilaterally, and are working with all our stakeholders to find the best solution for tennis.
“The World Cup of Tennis finals will unlock considerable new revenue for investing back into the sport through the ITF’s member nations. Investment in the development of the next generation remains the priority of the ITF and its national associations.”
To encourage collaboration, Haggerty Thursday announced the creation of a World Cup of Tennis Finals task force that will work on finalising the implementation of the event. He appointed board members Katrina Adams and Bernard Giudicelli as co-chairs of the task force. Further appointments, including external experts, will be announced in due course.
The World Cup of Tennis finals will form part of a wider discussion process regarding the dates, formats and tennis calendars from 2019 onwards. As part of those discussions, the ITF remains committed to expanding the Fed Cup World Group from eight to 16 teams.
Agenda on Davis Cup and Fed Cup reforms finalised
The ITF board of directors has finalised the list of reforms for Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas that will be put to vote by its member nations at the 2017 ITF AGM in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on 4 August.
The wide-ranging reform package, which would come into effect in 2018, will significantly enhance the ITF’s flagship team competitions for players, fans, broadcasters, partners and national associations.
The reforms include:
- All singles matches in Davis Cup will be played as best-of-three tiebreak sets, rather than best-of-five sets. Davis Cup will retain its three-day format, with doubles still played on the Saturday over the best-of-five sets.
- The finalists in both Davis Cup and Fed Cup will be guaranteed the choice of hosting their first-round tie in the following year.
- The Davis Cup dead rubber policy will be amended to reduce the number of dead rubbers. If the fourth match is decisive, and lasts three sets or at least 90 minutes, the fifth match will not be played. A match tiebreak will replace the third set in all Davis Cup dead rubbers.
- Hosting costs for national associations will be reduced. This includes the reduction of match court availability by one day.
- Player onsite commitments will be reduced.
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