'Gerard Pique doesn't want to change tennis. He just brings unique ideas'
In an interview to Tennis Magazin, the ITF President David Haggerty commented on the FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique's influence on the new Davis Cup project. "Gerard is a tennis fan", said the American. "He does not want to change tennis. He is definitely a footballer, but he understands tennis and he brings unique ideas. But it's the ITF that owns the event and it's up to us to do our best in terms of tennis. We work with Kosmos, that features Pique as a President, as a partner, mostly on a commercial level. The Davis Cup reform was supported by the big majority of associations. The 71% voted for the change."
Haggerty believes that the changes will give a lot of benefits to the players: "One of the most exciting things about the new Davis Cup format is that there is more safety for the players and fans' schedule. In the old format, players had to play for four weeks to win the title. If you add pre and post preparation, it took from seven to eight weeks for a player. With the new format you just have two weeks and for some of them also just one week. From a player's point of view, that makes sense. From the qualified countries and fans' point of view, it makes sense, so they can make a plan in February and organize everything for the final round - tickets, hotel and much more. From the TV point of view, the new format is much more exciting and more marketable. Now there are 18 countries, almost the entire world will watch them in Madrid."
The Davis Cup finals will take place from 18 to 24 November, Rafael Nadal and Marin Cilic are among the big names confirmed.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2O9j0e8
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