A Reworked Davis Cup Requires Some Patience

“I think you’ve got to look at it as a whole, look at the big picture,” said Mardy Fish, a former top 10 player who is the new captain of the United States Davis Cup team. “It feels different, a little different, sure, but the bones are there. The playing for your country is there, and the team part is there, and it’s always special putting on the flag and putting on the jacket. There is something very powerful about the American flag and having it on your chest.”

The United States, featuring two Davis Cup rookies in Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka, will make its debut in the new format on Tuesday. The United States will face Canada, which defeated Italy on Monday after another of the game’s bright young talents, Denis Shapovalov, clinched the victory over the new Italian star Matteo Berrettini, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 7-6 (5), in what amounted to the new Davis Cup’s first thriller.

Participation of star players was one of the big justifications for messing with the Cup’s rich tradition, but only five of the current top 10 are in Madrid.

Though No. 1 Nadal and No. 2 Novak Djokovic are here, No. 4 Dominic Thiem and No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas, who dueled Sunday at the ATP Finals, are not because their countries, Austria and Greece, did not qualify. No. 5 Daniil Medvedev, worn down from a successful fall, withdrew and was not on the Russian team that beat Croatia on Monday. And Davis Cup refuseniks Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev are providing plenty of social-media competition with a big-money exhibition tour of Latin America.

Tennis Channel in the United States will show one of those exhibition matches on Sunday after failing to agree to financial terms with Kosmos on the rights to Davis Cup. Instead, Fox Sports 2 will broadcast the American team’s matches and the championship match in the United States.

Source: The New York Times

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