“You killed the Davis Cup. Wawrinka argued with Piqué, the Czechs believe in a famous revival

The final tournament of the Davis Cup started on Tuesday without much attention from the tennis world. Swiss star Stan Wawrinka documented the zero-sum atmosphere caused by the current system, where most teams cannot play in front of their own fans, and traded arguments with the creator of the controversial revolution, former footballer Gerard Piqué.

The three-time Grand Slam winner filmed the empty stands of Manchester’s AO Arena, home of one of the four main groups of this year’s final tournament, and thus documented the dismal audience scene of the opening match between France and Switzerland.

The duel, which if held in one of the countries involved, would undoubtedly offer a frenetic tennis atmosphere, was played in undignified silence.

“Many thanks, Gerard Pique and the ITF,” commented the 38-year-old Swiss, winner of the 2014 Davis Cup alongside Roger Federer, on the depressing footage.

In his post on the X platform, i.e. the former Twitter, he identified the former Barcelona football star and head of the Kosmos investment group as well as the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which once again took over the current year exclusively under its wing.

“This is not the Davis Cup,” Australian tennis player John Millman responded to Wawrinka. “They killed the Davis Cup,” added American Mardy Fish.

When the Swiss tennis player lost his match against Ugo Humbert 4-6, 4-6 and looked at his phone in the dressing room, he already had Piqué’s reaction under the post.

“This is last year’s attendance in the group stage. You can compare it yourself. And we don’t organize it anymore, ask the ITF,” the businessman wrote, posting the figure of 113,268 viewers during last year’s finals week.

To this, Wawrinka responded mockingly: “After a bad day on the court, I at least laughed now. It would be amazing to understand why, after such a success, a contract concluded for twenty-five years ended after five years.”

Kosmos entered the Davis Cup in 2018, according to the contract, it was supposed to pump a total of three billion dollars into the team competition over a quarter of a century. But part of it was a change in the game format, the traditional elimination system ended with a weekend match on the ground of one of the teams.

Piqué dreamed up a tennis equivalent of the soccer World Cup, but he was immediately heavily criticized for the radical changes, and from the beginning there were voices that one of the oldest sporting events in history was dead.

The ITF, which surprisingly terminated the contract with Kosmos in January of this year, was also criticized. The case is already in court, Piqué’s company wants compensation of 50 million dollars from the tennis federation.

“What we did with the Davis Cup is a tremendous success. The competition was declining, it was down, we saved it in every way. In one year, we quadrupled our income,” Piqué explained.

The Czech tennis players will also enter the tournament today in Valencia with a duel against the home Spaniards, who have to do without Carlos Alcaraz. They will also play there against the South Korean and Serbian national teams, probably with Novak Djokovic in the lineup.

From the basic groups, which, in addition to the aforementioned Manchester and Valencia, also host the Italian Bologna and the Croatian Split, two teams will advance. The elimination play-off will be played in November in Malaga, Spain.

The Czech No. 1 player will be the 30th player in the world ranking and Australian Open quarter-finalist Jiří Lehečka, in addition to him, the team includes doubles specialist Adam Pavlásek, the 119th tennis player in the world Tomáš Macháč and the 151st man in the ATP ranking Jakub Menšík. The only eighteen-year-old talent shined at the past US Open, where he advanced right from his first Grand Slam qualification and won the third round.

The team led by the long-time non-playing captain Jaroslav Navrátil makes no secret of his ambitions to advance and confirm the revival of Czech men’s tennis, which for many years had a difficult time coming to terms with the departures of Tomáš Berdych and Radek Štěpánek, the main architects of two famous Davis Cup triumphs in 2012 and 2013.

According to Navrátil, there is increasing evidence that Czech tennis is on the rise.

“Jirka Lehečka is already a player in the top 30, Kuba Menšík is doing great results. I would also like Tomáš Macháč to move up a bit, because I think he has more to offer than what he is selling so far. He has what it takes to be in the top 100, he’s still missing a step,” the captain mentioned in a recent interview for Aktuálně.cz.

“We can surprise. Today everyone knows that the Czech Republic didn’t just come to participate, but is competitive,” Navrátil said just before the start of the tournament.

2023-09-13 04:27:35
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