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| Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal after their final match at the Australian Open last year |
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal urged organisers of the ATP Cup and Davis Cup Finals to consider a possible merger, saying it makes little sense to have two menโs team competitions on the tennis calendar.
The ATP Cup, which began on Friday, will feature 24 nations contesting in Perth, Brisbane and Sydney over 10 days for the first time and will give the top menโs players a solid platform to prepare for the Australian Open.
The tournament, however, comes just six weeks after the inaugural edition of the revamped Davis Cup, the International Tennis Federationโs flagship event, which was similar in nature and question remains if the two can co-exist in the future.
โWe need to have one Super World Cup event, whatever you want to call it,โ world number two Djokovic, who heads the ATP playersโ council, told a news conference on Thursday.
โThatโs not going to happen next yearโฆ but if the two sides, the ITF, the Davis Cup, and the ATP get together very quickly, it can happen possibly for 2022.
โI hope it will happen because itโs kind of hard to get top players to commit to play both events. And itโs six weeks apart, so theyโre not really helping each other in terms of marketing, in terms of the value of the event and so forth.โ
Djokovicโs concerns were echoed by world number one Nadal, who said having to play back-to-back team tournaments was confusing.
โFor me personally thatโs not the ideal situation for our sport, but thatโs how it works today and Iโm very excited that we can change that in the future,โ said Nadal, who won a fifth Davis Cup title with Spain in November.
The participating teams for the event have been determined by the singles ranking of their best player. Six of the top seven players in the world, barring Swiss great Roger Federer, have arrived in Australia.
Federer pulled out of the event to spend more time with his family. Britainโs Andy Murray and Japanโs Kei Nishikori are other notable absentees due to injury.
Australian Open holder Djokovic will make his ATP Cup debut for Serbia against South Africa in Brisbane on Saturday while Nadal will lead Spain into action against Georgia in Perth on the same day.
REVAMPED AUSSIE SUMMER
To accommodate the $15 million ATP Cup, which also offers 750 ranking points, this yearโs Australian Open has been pushed back from its usual mid-month start by a week and will kick off at Melbourne Park from Jan. 20.
The ATP Cup has also left no room in the revamped tennis calendar for the mixed-gender Hopman Cup, which is popular with players and has traditionally served as a warm-up for the yearโs first Grand Slam.
With Brisbane hosting matches in the ATP Cup, next weekโs Brisbane International will be a womenโs only tournament while the Sydney International โ one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world dating back to 1885 โ has also gone missing.
Sydneyโs loss proved to be Adelaideโs gain as the city will host the Adelaide International from Jan. 12, where Djokovic and womenโs world number one Ash Barty are the top draws.
ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas and Wimbledon champion Simona Halep will also play in Adelaide.
Sydney, which will host both the knockout stage of the ATP Cup and the group stage, also has to deal with apprehensions about smoke from the devastating bushfires impacting play.
Britainโs team captain Tim Henman played down those concerns.
โIn the context of what this country is going through with the bushfires and for us having to deal with perhaps slightly poor air quality, I think right there is the perspective,โ he told reporters. โI donโt envisage it being a problem at all.โ
REUTERS
