ITF president, David Haggerty is looking forward to the ‘Festival of Tennis’ next year as the Davis Cup qualifying draw is announced.
Next year’s Davis Cup will begin in February with a 24 team qualifying event, where the 12 winners will progress to the 18 team Davis Cup Finals in November 2019.
The 12 winners will join this year’s semi-finalists in France, Spain, Croatia and USA as well as the two wildcards who are Argentina and Great Britain.
Before the draw began, the president of the International Tennis Federation, David Haggerty, explained that he is looking forward to February’s ties.
“The new Davis Cup Finals is a festival of tennis. Beginning in February there will be 12 locations where 24 nations will compete. It will be a great start to 2019.”
The draw has offered some interesting ties such as Switzerland hosting Russia as well as China hosting Japan in an all Asian tie, which should be good for the diversity of the competition.
Here is the draw, with the ties being played on the weekend of the 1st-2nd of February as all five rubbers are best of three tiebreak sets.
Here are the 2019 #DavisCupQualifiers! pic.twitter.com/xdthw8r27c
— Davis Cup (@DavisCup) September 26, 2018
On the first day of action in February, there will be the two singles with the doubles and reverse singles being played on the second day. The 12 winners will enter the Davis Cup Finals while the 12 losers will play Zone Group I action in September 2019.
David Haggerty also spoke about his vision for the 2019 Davis Cup Finals, “It’s a celebration of tennis, it’s a festival. A chance for the best players and best teams to compete for the Davis Cup trophy,” Haggerty stated.
“The new finals will elevate the Davis Cup competition on a par with grand slams in terms of prize money as well as prestige.”
The eventual finals will take place in November 2019 with 18 teams competing for the trophy in a round robin style format before a knock out tournament with the eight teams that progress to the quarter-finals. All the matches and rounds will take place in one venue which is believed to be in Madrid in 2019.
