Ken Rosewall, Pat Cash and Lleyton Hewitt are each near to or are in tears.
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Icons from three generations of Australian tennis are beside themselves about their beloved Davis Cup.
And with some good reason it would seem – as that icon in itself now resembles little of its glorious history beyond its name.
The International Tennis Federation which in reality controls little in world tennis other than the Cup, its equivalent for females – the Fed Cup and the Olympic Games tournaments, this week decided that the nearly 120 year-old competition should be re-invented.
The home and away format held over separate four weeks each year is gone and replaced by an 18 team season-ending tournament for teams each November.
In a compromise to keep the detractors of the new plan at least partly at bay, there will also be a qualifying tournament each February – although the chances of that lasting beyond the first year or two might be slim.
Gone too are the reverse-singles matches and five-set encounters. But in comes massive sponsorship and prizemoney as the quid pro quo.
Whilst Davis Cup loving nations like Australia and Great Britain appear to have voted against the new iteration, the United States and a very sufficient number of others to garner the necessary two thirds majority were in favour.
In a recent paper for his professional body’s bulletin, associate professor Sandy Gordon suggested that “professional sport has become a distorted form of physical activity controlled by the power elite and shaped by the needs of corporate logic – winning and profit.”
The former sport psychologist for the Australian, Indian and Sri Lankan cricket teams went on to observe that “as part of the entertainment industry, sport has become commodified, commercialised and spectacularised.”
Gordon was speaking generally but his words fit almost perfectly the rationale behind the transformation of one of the oldest nation to nation contests in sport.
Until now it has essentially been up to each tennis playing nation to determine how seriously they would take part and how each should remunerate its players.
The players’ motivation clearly differed as well – with some placing a very high importance on representing their country and others less so.
In the past quarter century despite often having many of the world’s best, the United States often had difficulty in fielding a competitive team even if the newbies available for the early rounds actually got the team to progress to a point where in theory the stars might have been more motivated.
The new Davis Cup is much about motivation – a different sort. The ITF, often limited to merely playing a support role to the player’s professional associations that run the circuit and the Grand Slam organisers, finally has some real cash of its own.
The deal with sports promotion company Kosmos will deliver $4.6 billion over the next 25 years. It’s an outfit that’s run by Barcelona defender Gerard Pique.
That irony was not lost on another Australian Davis Cup tragic Todd Woodbridge who took to Twitter to observe that a footballer got the chance to tell the ITF voters why change was needed but not so the legends of its own game who disagree.
But it’s not only the ITF that stands to win financially from the change.
The players and their national bodies will be major beneficiaries with a prize pool of around $37 million each year apportioned on a two thirds/one third basis.
Yet even all that has still meant that the final tournament could only be fitted in at season’s end - placing it precariously in the minds of players anticipating time-off with their families, for rest, recovery and surgery.
Given that it is cash they haven’t been used to up until now, will it deliver any more motivation to current and past recalcitrant to put their hands up for their national teams?
Or has a grand old tradition in sport been trashed for not much at all.