Davis Cup: "This deal can not be financed" - skepticism about the billions project
The new Davis Cup has been launched and, thanks to impressive inaugural awards, stars such as Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are also present. However, the future forecasts of the format are problematic for tennis connoisseurs.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Nov 19, 2019, 11:47 am
It was early spring when Gerard Pique and the head of the Tennis World Federation, the American David Haggerty, drew great prospects for the new Davis Cup. Pique, the Spanish professional footballer and conductor of the new rights holder "Kosmos", talked about a "tennis festival" that will be celebrated, including a "great spectacle and the dawn of a new era".
What to keep from the PR drumming will now be showing in Madrid for the next few days, at the final tournament of the Nations Cup, at an event often referred to by critics as the "Cosmos Cup" or "Pique Cup". To make it clear that it has nothing in common with the old, traditional format. With home and away games to the finals, with gripping matches in front of your own audience or far away.
Germany starts on Wednesday
By Sunday, the annual winner will now be determined in a final tournament with 18 teams, first in group matches, then in quarter and semi-finals and finally in a final. The DTB team meets in the preliminary round on Argentina (Wednesday) and Chile (Thursday), top players is the strengthened this season Sauerland Jan-Lennard Struff, him are the Black Forest Dominik Koepfer and the double Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies at, the latter just still in the World Cup final of the professional union ATP in London in use.
Germany was - and still is - one of the biggest and most vociferous skeptics in the remodeled competition, especially as the memory of big, emotional Davis Cup moments is still present in Germany in the 80s and 90s of the last century. But also because the fear is great that many of the big promises of the new organizers can not be kept. Boris Becker, the protagonist of unforgettable Davis Cup duels, was also one of the sharp critics of the reform project. Now that the reality of a new format is there, the department head of German men's tennis sees the whole thing officially in the style of a diplomat: "I give the competition a chance. That requires fairness. "Becker's former mastermind, the Romanian super-manager Ion Tiriac, does not know that much noble restraint, he calls the event a" joke "and a" farce ".
"No chance of survival"
Tiriac, the cunning shopkeeper, is by no means the only one in the tennis universe who, shaking his head, asks how solid the World Association's seemingly fairy-tale deal with the financiers of Kosmos is. $ 3 billion will go to the International Tennis Federation and affiliates over the next 25 years, $ 120 million year on year. But so far it is unclear how Cosmos can even approach these sums - and even wants to make a profit.
Large international TV stations have not entered the Davis Cup finals, and the sponsoring portfolio is rather thin. One of the advertising boards must already be recorded by the announcement of the new Tingeltour of Piques consort Shakira. There are also mixed ticket pre-sales, even at the beginning of the event, many seats were empty. Some remember the - possibly prophetic - saying of an American player in the tennis business, presented in the Players Lounge of the US Open: "This deal is not affordable," was the apodictic conclusion that the tournament has "no chance of survival."
Inaugural awards attract the stars
The biggest problem that Kosmos and his frontman Pique make no secret of is the date of their Davis Cup tournament. After the spectacle of the ATP World Championships in London, it is hard for most fans and experts to imagine the new Davis Cup as a highlight once again, at the end of the annual excitement of the traveling circus. The late November deadline shortens the much-needed season break for the weary players, and the failure and rejection rate would undoubtedly be much higher if there were not large attendance checks. As can be heard, Nadal and Djokovic, the most prominent contributors, were even lured with additional inaugural bonuses. Nevertheless, Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev go their own ways in a show fight tour in South America, also missing the World Cup finalists Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem.
The Davis Cup finals are in the throes of power behind the tennis scenes with the worst possible date - and therefore also on shaky foundations. Pique, also the ITF, would like to switch to September, to a week in late September, just after the US Open. But there, the glamorous Laver Cup and its frontman Federer have settled comfortably, they even have the ATP's mark and are on the official tournament calendar. At the beginning of the season, there will be another team competition from 2020, the ATP Cup in Australia, with all the stars and superstars in the industry then. Tiriac, the old fox, has recently smugly asked in a small round, which competition would most likely be superfluous. And then he added, "This Davis Cup here, will not last as long as it is," said the billionaire, "it may be that in two years it will be completely changed again."