PARIS, France – The Davis Cup group stage, which will bring together sixteen teams divided into four hours, the first two of which will advance to the knockout stage, has been rescheduled for September, the International Tennis Federation announced on Thursday. (ITF). . ).
The knockout phase remains scheduled for November.
From 2022, the group stage will be played in four cities instead of three in 2021 and in one, Madrid, in 2019 (the 2020 edition was canceled due to COVID). But until then, the group stage and the knockout phase were linked at the end of the season.
From now on, the two phases will be separated: in 2022, the first is scheduled for September 14-18 and the second (quarterfinals, semifinals and final) from November 23 to 27, the ITF said.
“Host cities should be defined quickly in March,” the body added.
“The changes take into account the comments of players and leaders to lighten the program by ending a week earlier than 2021,” the ITF said.
For the 2022 edition, champions Russia and runners-up Croatia automatically qualify for the group stage, as well as guest Serbia and Great Britain. The other twelve nations will go through a qualifying round scheduled for March 4-5 and will be played in the old-fashioned format at home or away.
The new form of the Davis Cup, introduced in 2019, has been widely criticized, especially because it has distorted competition from national teams dating back more than a century, depriving it of its particularly magical atmosphere.
In Madrid in 2019, Spain, moving to the end, had saved the appearances in terms of atmosphere, while most of the meetings had taken place in anonymity and gloomy silence. In 2021, the competition has spread to its group stage in three venues, with the idea that three teams – Spain in Madrid, Italy in Turin and Austria in Innsbruck – can benefit their audience. Russia beat Croatia in the final on December 5th in Madrid with some indifference.
