ITF 2018 AGM - Davis Cup

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

ITF 2018 AGM - Davis Cup

JonH · All-time great

If the ATP had got their way a few season ago, most of the 250 level events would have used a group style system - do you remember when they ran a few events one year in groups and it all ended up going horribly pear shaped; fans and players largely didnt like it. I think that point about tennis being about winning is the key.

I recall when we had two year end Finals (or season end). The Masters was played in various venues but at the time recall it was New York Madison Sq Garden, usually in December or January (starting the next year); that pretty much always used an 8 player round robin format as today, experimented with a 12 player and 16 player knockout, but it was felt those formats diluted the player field from the elite 8 and so they have settled on that for many years now; often had many accusations of players tanking meaningless matches etc. The WCT Finals in Dallas held in April/May always had an 8 player knockout event, 5 sets in each match - I used to love the WCT Finals much more, 5 sets appealed but the issue there was that as matches became longer (when Becker, Lendl etc came along) that the knockout format couldnt work as players would end up playing consecutive days in the semis and final, giving one player or other an inherent advantage (it was over 7 days so one match a day and inevitably the format favoured one player or another.

With regards to new event, I suspect one part of the logic around 18 teams is that with group winners and leading runners up going through every team will stay in the event throughout the group stages and have a chance of progressing. Hence teams wont be as likely to not try or throw matches. A team that loses its first match could still win the second match and get through on countback - with 16 teams, there is a good chance up to 4 teams could be out of it before the final round of matches and hence cause the last round of matches in each group to be a mixed bag - or 4 teams could win their first two and similarly rest players etc in their last match. It is my own theory but it would make some sense therefore to have 18 teams - although why two of them need to be wild cards other than for money reasons still defeats me.

indiana · Tennis legend

Groups of 3, as was the format used in that failed effort to bring in an initial round robin format to ATP 250s, are to my mind particularly unwelcome with the large possibility of all 3 in the group having one win and one loss so then a tiebreak count.

Hey, now in this team version we are going to have that plus when we actually find out who all the group winners and runners up are the further possibly fairly obvious / possibly not calculations as to the best two runners up just to make it more 'interesting'.

Yes one reason may be to keep teams involved ( and it does that better than say groups of 4 ) or at least thinking they may be still involved as best they and others can work out!

Again, tennis should be simply about winning and losing, not adventures into mathematics and how much they maybe have to win and lose matches / sets by.

Yes, that can / does happen in the ATP tour finals groups of 4 individual players. But this whole format looks like that possible complexity with bells on across 6 groups of teams attempting to produce combined results that overall will get them into the group winnners or best runners up places.

The negatives surely outweigh whatever supposed positives.

JonH · All-time great

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree - just trying to get into their heads a little - hard to do!

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
mike55 wrote:
How would the finals work with 18 teams? They've got to be reduced to 4 semi-finalists. Would they have two RR groups of 9 with the top two from each going through? That means each team would have to play 8 others, which would take more than a week. Have they thought this through?
6 groups of 3. Winners of each group plus best two runners up will make the QFs.
So we are going to have to get out the calculators and we will be looking at games won/played and working out percentages.
Oh great
What a magnificently well thought out number of finalists - not, and then that mess to deal with it. That's just not spectator / tennis follower friendly. Not sure great for the players either as a competition structure.

It's quite minor among all the rest of the stupidity involved but yes, why 18 so it gets so complicated? Far more sensible to ditch the WCs and have 4 groups of 4 with the winners/top 2 going into the KO phase.

The best two 2nd places probably just means that those teams who get the luckiest draws are more likely to go through, whereas those unlucky enough to draw the very best teams are not only less likely to win their groups but also less likely to be one of the 'best' 2nd placed teams. At least when it gets complicated at events like the WTF, you're only comparing set scores, etc, against other players in the same group.

flamingowings · All-time great

Stuart Fraser
Verified account @stu_fraser

How would Andy Murray have voted in the Davis Cup reform vote last week? "I would have abstained. Neither are the correct option."
8:16 AM - 24 Aug 2018

indiana · Tennis legend

flamingowings wrote:

Stuart Fraser
Verified account @stu_fraser

How would Andy Murray have voted in the Davis Cup reform vote last week? "I would have abstained. Neither are the correct option."
8:16 AM - 24 Aug 2018

If it was simply most votes won then abstaining would be a poor choice. He could still say he had voted for the lesser of two evils.

And probably if the new all change version is deemed not correct then it would make sense to vote against it. They could come back again another year with different proposals. Except the very flawed "let's grab for that money now" version got through ...

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 25th of August 2018 04:48:00 PM

JonH · All-time great

It appears they are now looking at September for these finals, perhaps in Laver Cup week, as pique has realised the players don't like the November option

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

Murray is expected to play the Glasgow DC tie in Sept. BBC 5live reporting that he'll discuss with his team but wants to play what could be the final home tie of the old format.

Mail reporting that Federer's not too happy with switch in dates to september threatening the Layver Cup. Couple of sharp comments about Garcia and Kosmos.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Just for info, the French FFT voted in favour of the proposed Davis Cup reforms, as everyone knows.

But, according to what I heard tonight, the decision was taken at a special General Meeting (or whatever) whereby each county president/regional representative had a vote. And the decision was only passed approx 55% versus 45%. So very close.....and some talk that, because of the nature of the decision, it fell under those things that should be by a special resolution (66%). But they fudged that and said that a simple majority would do. And then got it - just.....

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Not really related to this thread, but does France have the equivalent of County Week? I was just reading Judy Murray's book and she put (and clearly Jamie does) more emphasis on County Week than any club fixture. Whereas my guess in France would be that the top club fixtures probably outweigh County Week if they have an equivalent.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

No, Born2Win, there's no County week here (although I'm not 100% sure how County week works in the UK - who picks the teams? And it's only doubles, yes? That would absolutely never fly in France - unless it was for over 60s)

There's individual county championships (for all ages), as well as individual regional and national championships. And the results of these give a league table for the counties - the top county wins something (not major, more prestige).

And there's club tennis. And corporate league tennis (all at county, regional and national level)

And there are certain circuits that have a county part to them i.e. all the winners of certain county events qualify, as a team, to the regional version where they all play individually, but also for their county, i.e. there's an individual draw that plays out (with FFT points, and prizes etc) and also gives points to the county and at the end, as a function of all the individual results, there's a county champion. But it's not all the counties, just those who form part of the region for that tournament (usually about 6 or 8).

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

I'm wondering if the ITF have also got rid of the 5set and 3day format from the Feb qualifying rounds without really declaring this up front.. Can't find any details anywhere on this other than dates 1-2 Feb on the web site. What a fudge this is. Looks like 2day 3set format to me based on these dates (i.e. 2dates). So this has totally changed even the home or away qualy round (not home and away as they keep fudging us).

www.daviscup.com/en/news/292334.aspx

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Smudge226 wrote:
I'm wondering if the ITF have also got rid of the 5set and 3day format from the Feb qualifying rounds without really declaring this up front.. Can't find any details anywhere on this other than dates 1-2 Feb on the web site. What a fudge this is. Looks like 2day 3set format to me based on these dates (i.e. 2dates). So this has totally changed even the home or away qualy round (not home and away as they keep fudging us).

www.daviscup.com/en/news/292334.aspx

From the Davis Cup website:

Ties contested at the Finals will consist of two singles matches and one doubles match, all played on one day.

Ties contested in the qualifying event and in Zone Groups I and II will consist of four singles matches and one doubles match, played over two days.

There will be no changes to the format in Zone Groups III and IV.

Singles matches at all levels of the competition will be best-of-three tiebreak sets. Doubles matches at all levels of the competition will be best-of-three tiebreak sets with regular ad scoring.

JonH · All-time great

The world awaits tomorrows draw:

www.daviscup.com/en/news/292706.aspx

Argentina and Germany I reckon for WC's but let us see