We’re coming off one of the best long weekends of Davis Cup play in a long time, so I find myself wondering how many, if any, converts the event has won over. It isn’t an easy job, as I learned over lunch with my close friend and fellow writer, Glyn.
Glyn is a solid if not besotted tennis fan. He almost flew down to Miami just to see Roger Federer play, having decided that he really wants to see the all-time Grand Slam singles champ play, live, at least once before the Swiss retires. Glyn never made it to Miami, but he watched much of the tournament on television—including Federer’s loss to Kei Nishikori.
I asked Glyn if he also watched the subsequent Davis Cup tie involving Federer and he confessed that he had not. In fact, he didn’t know it was on, and wasn’t really sure what this Davis Cup was all about. While explaining it, I recognized just how difficult it must be to recruit new fans to the competition when they’re accustomed to understanding tennis as a sport of individuals, hashing out their pecking order in the straightforward context of the tournament game.
The structure of Davis Cup in every respect is, if not exactly eccentric, then fairly complex. That’s both the strength and weakness of the event. It’s easy to understand why “reformers,” many of them tennis insiders and former Davis Cup performers, would like to see the competition streamlined and made more fan-friendly. But the major question is, would any or all of the proposed alternatives make the event better, or even more marketable?
This has become a legitimate and common subject for debate because of an unusual factor. The Davis Cup is a property of the International Tennis Federation, the umbrella group whose constituents, like the USTA, are the grass-roots of the game. They were also the creators and remain the owners of the Grand Slam events and some other competitions.
Neither the ITF nor its constituents are averse to making money, but their mandate is to administer and grow the game. The men and women in the highest positions in the ITF and the various national federations are amateur volunteers, not professional marketers. Politics often enter into their decision making. They can take a purist stance, as they do when it comes to Davis Cup, and that means they run afoul of many of the forces shaping the tennis market—tournament promoters, pro-tour schedule makers, broadcasters, player agents, the media, and even the players themselves.
In 1973, most of the top men boycotted Wimbledon because of the way the ITF (and Wimbledon) upheld the Yugoslav federation’s suspension for Nikki Pilic for refusing to take part in a Davis Cup tie. Later in the Open era, both Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe had issues with Davis Cup captain Arthur Ashe.
In 2001, before Federer had even turned 20, he clashed with his Davis Cup captain Jakob Hlasek—who had been given his job by the Swiss tennis federation over Federer’s objections. That helped sour Federer on Davis Cup for some time. The Argentineans seem continually mired in Davis Cup politics. These and other instances amply illustrate the kinds of problems you run into when amateurs are given autocratic powers.