Empty seats at the Davis Cup bring criticism, but the competition needs time. VIDEOS and PICTURES

By
Alex Boyden
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Davis Cup

The new Davis Cup has just started among a lot of criticism. Many fans and players blasted at its “main organizer” Gerard Pique for changing a format that used to represent a huge tradition for tennis. While it seems to be horrific to condensate the Finals in one week, it has been acknowledged by top personalities such as Novak Djokovic that something had to be done because the tournament was struggling to attract top players. Some ties were particularly tough to deal with, like the one in February that used to come soon after the Australian Open. Asking top players to compete somewhere else in the world for the honor of their country was causing problems.

Therefore, the Davis Cup was acquired, and its format changed radically with a handful of teams playing soon after the ATP Finals. While some players refused to compete (eg. Federer and Zverev), some others gave it a shot (eg. Nadal and Djokovic).

The empty seats

Tennis traditionalists were ready to criticize the new format and that came soon after they saw the first images and videos showing quite a lot of empty seats.

Some were ready to point at the empty seats of the open ceremony. However, probably it was the timing of this event that was not correct as not many people have to be expected to attend this kind of ceremony on a Monday afternoon.

Pique arguing on Twitter

Gerard had a “discussion” over twitter with former world no.39 Filip Dewulf about the empty seats and Alize Cornet attacked the Spaniard saying: “Dear Gerard, I can see that you’ve never been to a REAL Davis Cup ! And that’s not it”

 

Some vibe was there…

Even if this was clearly a completely different Davis Cup than the previous one, we need to admit and there was some vibe on some courts. Probably more time is needed.