Nadal, the covid-19 and … sell his soul to Abu Dhabi?

In 2018, Gerard Piqué decided to give a change to world tennis: through your company Kosmos, I bought the Davis Cup to turn it into a tennis world championship, a sporting competition that is more agile and quicker to play than the previous format, long over time and less attractive to fans. Last season the first edition of the new competition took place, based in Madrid, in which Spain became the winner and where the tournament became a true revolution and clearly a success. But this season has lost some appeal because of bad luck and his future.

The idea of ​​the Barcelona player is to turn Davis into the great world tennis tournament and, for this, the objective is none other than make it known first-hand in other countries. For that reason, this campaign would not only be played in Madrid, but would also have two more venues: Innsbruck (Austria) and Turin (Italy), where the final will be played. The idea of ​​Piqué is to expand the tournament, take it to more cities and even continents to generate that the passion for tennis grows throughout the planet with a competition whose current format is fast and attractive. But in the world of tennis there are still athletes who they do not look kindly the tournament.

Let’s start from the basis that the new format radically breaks with one of the main historical attractions of Davis: every year, you could see your team in your country, in different cities and against any type of rivals. But, by making it a ‘world’ with a single headquarters, one country ‘benefits’ from the tournament while others must watch it on television. That situation led to Roger Federer to announce that I would not play with this format: “The Davis Cup cannot become a Piqué Cup. I admit that it is strange to see a footballer meddle in the tennis business, “said the Swiss, one of the most successful of all time.

Now, it has been Lleyton Hewitt, captain of the Australian national team -the second country with the most titles in history, with 28-, which has once again charged against the format. The reason? The possibility that the next tournament venue is Abu Dhabi. It was ‘TheTelegraph’ who claimed that Kosmos had reached a multi-million dollar agreement with the United Arab Emirates whereby the only headquarters of Davis in the coming years would be the capital of the emirate. Thus spoke the former number one in the world: “I think it’s ridiculous if they are going to sell the soul of the Davis Cup to the Middle East for another five years, they are really killing the competition. ”

But the criticism, to which Piqué is more than accustomed, they are not the main problem with whom this Davis has come across. In Spain, in fact, the way of introducing the players before taking to the court, similar to a boxing evening, in one of the great successes of the competition, has been highly praised. But the main problem it has been sporty: the long-term injury of Reef Nadal prevented him from participating in the tournament, while at the last minute they fell Roberto Bautista for an abdominal problem and Carlos Alcaraz placeholder image by covid. Despite the ‘little incentive’ sports, Spain offered a great image, but it was not worth it to qualify.

But, in addition, in Innsbruck the current situation has played a new trick on him, having to hold your meetings behind closed doors due to the high incidence of covid-19 and, in Italy, the interest in the tie between Colombia and the United States has been little or no, with empty stands and an image more typical of very low division matches than of a whole tennis World Cup. Therefore, the second edition of the new Davis has certainly been lackluster in all three venues: one, for having lost a certain sporting appeal in the absence of the first swords; another, because of the pandemic; the latter, for lack of attractiveness.

Three blows for a Piqué who, in addition, has met with Hewitt’s criticism of the possibility that the tournament would go to a country with no tennis tradition. “I’m not sure our opinion is going to matter much right now. Now, Davis Cup is run by a soccer player and his company, and it is totally different from anything tennis has had in the past, “said the Australian. Last year, the success of the champion was evident in our country, this course, it seems that it has not been received in the same way. And, in the meantime, the possibility of going to Abu Dhabi is already on the table …