Why Davis Cup doesn’t need to jettison its best-of-five-set format

What’s the best part of a Davis Cup weekend? For some, it’s the sight of unbridled patriotic pageantry in a sport with such a coolly globalist ethos. For others, it’s the sound of normally reticent fans letting their preferences and passions be heard at full volume. For the doubles devotees among us, it’s the rare chance to see that neglected version of the game get as much attention as the singles.

To me, though, the best part of Davis Cup comes right at the beginning of a tie, in the first few games of the opening rubber. As the two players work their way into the match, there’s a feeling that everyone is settling in for a long weekend together. We all know we’re going to be here for a while. We all know we’re going to watch a small cast of characters act out a lengthy drama on a single court. We all know, as that drama progresses, that we’re going to witness ups and downs and twists and turns that we can’t possibly foresee right now.

Yet even in those opening minutes, there’s also an intensity to the atmosphere in a Davis Cup arena that doesn’t exist anywhere else in tennis. When the home-team’s player wins his first point, or records his first service hold, the fans stand, scream, blow their kazoos, bash their Thunderstix and begin to chant. Normally, this type of response to a single point at the start of a three-out-of-five-set match would be embarrassingly out of proportion to its importance. Not here; over-the-top reactions are what Davis Cup is all about.

Despite those reactions, which the Cup provokes in arenas from Buenos Aires to Moscow to Melbourne, there has been a feeling for decades that the competition isn’t living up to its potential as an entertainment product. To its detractors, the staggered, four-stage schedule is confusing. The fact that the winning nation must begin its title defense three months later is absurd. The terminology, with its ties and rubbers—some alive and some dead—is fusty and arcane. And apparently, as of this week, those ties and rubbers take too long. On Wednesday, the International Tennis Federation, which runs Davis Cup, announced that it will vote in August on a proposal to reduce the length of matches from best of five sets to best of three.

That decision won’t be made lightly; best of five has been the standard since the Cup began 117 years ago. But the move also shouldn’t come as a surprise. The ITF has been looking for ways to attract more top players to Davis Cup, who will hopefully attract more of that mysterious Holy Grail known as the “casual fan.” This brand of fan, it is believed, wants to watch Roger Federer, but doesn’t want to spend 10, 12, 15 hours over a weekend doing it.

Shortening matches would seem to be a logical solution. The best-of-five format is, in some ways, a relic of tennis’ amateur era, when the sport wasn’t so physically taxing on its players and there was no need to make it fit into a television programmer’s schedule. Today the men play best of three at every event other than Davis Cup and the Grand Slams (and the women play it everywhere). There are few complaints about a lack of drama or excitement in the shorter format.

Change, as I wrote above, has been in the Davis Cup air for decades, and the new head of the ITF, David Haggerty, says he wants to make some of those long-talked-about modifications happen soon. This one seems to have been hastened by the dismal number of marquee players who showed up for the opening round in February; only one of the Top 14 men, Novak Djokovic, participated. The hope is that reducing the strenuousness of the ties will entice the ATP’s big names to add the Cup to their already busy tour schedules.

By itself, this change seems unlikely to make that happen. Even if a player is on court for less time, he still must travel to wherever the tie is held—which could be anywhere from Kalamazoo to Kazakhstan—and spend the week with his team. That might not sound all that onerous, but for the top players it’s often one commitment too many. For example, Rafael Nadal could conceivably play for Spain in Serbia in early April—he won’t be far away. But Rafa said in Indian Wells this week that it wouldn’t be easy. He’ll be coming off a long month on hard courts in North America, and getting ready for a longer two months on clay—the most important part of the season for him—in Europe.

That said, it’s something of a myth that Nadal and his fellow stars don’t have time for Davis Cup. Last year, Juan Martin del Potro led Argentina to its first title in thrilling fashion. The previous year, Andy Murray did the same for Great Britain. In 2014, Federer and Stan Wawrinka brought the Cup home for the Swiss for the first time. In 2010, Djokovic led Serbia to the title, and in 2012 he helped his nation back to the final. Nadal has been part of five championship teams with Spain.

All of them played best of five without complaint. In such a prestigious event, it probably would have felt strange, and a little risky, to do anything else. Whatever we think of the time it takes, best of five is a fairer format and truer test than best of three. The longer a match goes, the better the odds are that the superior player will find a way to win it.

In Davis Cup, the longer a match goes, the more exciting it also tends to get. The competition produced three of the very best contests of 2016: Murray’s win over Kei Nishikori in the first round, Del Potro’s win over Murray in the semifinals and Del Potro’s win over Marin Cilic in the final. All went five sets; all were unforgettable. When they’re competing for their countries, players tend to give everything they have until the bitter end—I want to watch as much of that kind of effort as I can. Does the strain lead to more injuries? I’ve always thought the nonstop, never-ending 11-month season, rather than the fact that the men play best-of-five sets a few times a year, was the real culprit when it comes to player health.

There are changes that could help Davis Cup. Giving the defending champions a first-round bye, holding the competition every other year, consolidating it into three rounds, giving more ranking points to the participants—these might attract brand-name players and their fans. But I’m the wrong person to recommend any modifications; I like the Cup as it is, with the stars or without them. I like how it shows that tennis is more than just the big names; I like how it allows journeymen the chance to be heroes for a day. The current U.S. team might not have any future Hall of Famers on it, but John Isner and Jack Sock are Top 20 guys, and they’ve shown a willingness to travel anywhere, and play matches of any length, to bring a Cup back to the States. That’s something casual sports fans of any country should be able to get behind and enjoy. Not every competition needs to be dominated by the Big Four, and not every tournament has to bring in as many spectators and sponsors as the Grand Slams.

Going to best of three won’t save or destroy Davis Cup, but it will make this most storied of tennis competitions feel a little less special. In those opening moments of the first rubber, we won’t settle in quite as deeply or look forward to as much tennis over the coming weekend. We won’t foresee as many twists and turns in the drama. We won’t feel like something quite as weighty is about to happen. As it’s constituted today, Davis Cup, with its arcane ways and marathon matches, isn’t for everyone. But it is for people who love tennis.

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