David Haggertygetty images
The "fate of a desperate bid to safeguard the Davis Cup appears to rest in the hands" of the Lawn Tennis Association, according to Courtney Walsh of THE AUSTRALIAN. The "immediate future of the iconic competition" will be decided early on Thursday in a vote of Int'l Tennis Federation member nations meeting in Florida. The ITF wants to transform the Davis Cup into a "World Cup of Tennis Finals" to be played by 18 nations over one week in a neutral city each November. Australian officials, who oppose the change, arrived in the U.S. on Tuesday "with a fight on their hands to convince other nations to take a less radical path." ITF President David Haggerty "is reportedly confident the proposal will receive the two-thirds majority needed to move ahead." Haggerty is from the U.S., which is backing the proposal with financial support from billionaire Larry Ellison, whose Indian Wells Tennis Garden will host the revamped tournament in '21 "should it get the go-ahead." Wimbledon Chair Phillip Brook has backed the ITF proposal. The French Tennis Federation (FFT) backs the change, "despite the opposition" of its Davis Cup captain, Amelie Mauresmo, Yannick Noah and "several leading players" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 8/15).
GOING IN BLIND: The BBC's Simon Mundie reported German Tennis Federation (DTB) VP Dirk Hordorff said that plans to revamp the Davis Cup to create an 18-nation World Cup of Tennis Finals will "kill" the competition. Hordorff: "You cannot make an event which is more or less an exhibition, after the Masters in November, and expect the players to come. We all know how many players are injured and unavailable to play in the Masters, so to have another event after that doesn't make any sense if you want to have the players." Polish Tennis Federation VP Victor Artuchowski said, "They've had five months to explain what's happening. We've asked for analysis and due diligence -- and we've had very few answers. We're going into one of the biggest things in tennis blind" (BBC, 8/13).
