Davis Cup: Desperate to find the answers

The Davis Cup semifinals start today. Apparently. A gold star to those who can name the countries involved. Late in another season in which the future of the historic competition has been questioned and debated and plans for major reform either defeated or delayed, three of the four nations still in contention are among the dwindling number able to consistently field full-strength teams.

A coincidence? Hardly.

France, Belgium and Australia are joined by a weak Serbian line-up missing injured Novak Djokovic as well as Viktor Troicki and Janko Tipsarevic – the latter pair described as “managing fitness concerns of their own”. The unfortunate scheduling of ties in the week immediately following grand slams has long been a hindrance to attracting the best players, but not the only one. Indeed, without the carrot of Olympic selection being contingent on Davis Cup availability – including at least one tie in the two years prior – the situation would surely be far worse.

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Calls for change have been growing; the suggestions still endless. While minor format tweaks were approved, an ITF Board resolution to reduce matches to best-of-three tiebreak sets was narrowly defeated at the August AGM in Vietnam, although power was granted to “trial” recommendations made by the Davis and Fed Cup Committees. Meanwhile,the vote on a joint Davis-Fed Cup “World Cup of Tennis” finals venture in a neutral city – initially Geneva – was postponed for 12 months. Yet many question the desire to fiddle with the great asset that is the appeal of playing before a crazy-passionate home crowd.

Meanwhile, is Rome burning? And why, with only very rare exceptions, have passionate keepers of the flame such as Lleyton Hewitt’s Australia consistently had a full list from which to choose its foursome, when so many others have struggled to entice their best players into (non-Olympic, for there is a clear distinction) national service? History and tradition are clearly part of it.

“I just think we’re just a really good, tight group of guys that really look forward to playing for Australia, and every opportunity we get we try and come together and do the best we can and to wear the green and gold, we’re really proud to be able to do that,” says doubles specialist John Peers, the world No.2.

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“Lleyton has done an amazing job to bring all the guys together, and there’s a great team around us, as well, which makes it even more special to be able to share in what we’re all trying to do at the moment. We all know we’re a great chance to be able to try and win the Davis Cup title more than one time over the next several years. It’d be great to be able to become a dominant force in Davis Cup, and the depth we’ve got coming into the squad now is amazing.”

What a shame, though, that there are far fewer hands being raised elsewhere.

Some of my fondest memories from my decades covering tennis have come from Davis Cup ties, everywhere from a door-less Zimbabwean paddock venue when Hewitt was the orange boy in a team comprising Messrs Rafter, Philippoussis and the Woodies, to the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona for the 2000 final in which, however fruitless, Hewitt’s clay court heroics before a crowd of baying Catalans on day one in particular were something to behold.

But, having resisted change for so long, it now seems apparent that something is urgently needed to rekindle the interest of the top players, and the tennis world at large. A container load of gold stars, then, for anyone who can align the self-interested governing bodies and broker agreement on the best path to follow from here.