By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday, November 27, 2022
Since the Davis Cup changed its format in 2019, making the finals a group affair with a host city, eliminating best-of-five matches, and making ties best of three with doubles as a decider, many have voiced strong negative opinions on the direction of the competition.
Today, after falling in the final to Canada, Aussie captain Lleyton Hewitt, one of the competition’s greatest warriors, expressed views on the fact that doubles, the calling card of some nations, doesn’t even come into play in some ties.
He was asked how he felt about the fact that four sets (without any doubles) could decide a Davis Cup Final, while prior to 2019, four sets might not be enough to decide one singles match.
“Everyone knows my feelings,” Hewitt said, before clarifying that now isn’t really the right time to give constructive criticism. “I don’t think now is the time to talk about it.”
Nevertheless, Hewitt expressed sympathy for the Dutch team, and others who pride themselves on having stellar doubles pairings.
“Coming here this week, I felt disappointed for the Dutch team, for example,” he said. “You know, they’ve got two quality doubles players, and they do all the hard work all year to come and perform in the so-called biggest stage of the year, and they don’t get the chance to play a match. I thought that’s a failing in this concept the whole time, and no one is listening.
“So I can talk till I’m blue in the face, but nothing’s changing right now. We just keep putting Band-Aids – well, we don’t, but certain people put Band-Aids on problems. It’s not fixing the problem.”
Hewitt referenced the Mark Woodforde and Tood Woodbridge, Davis Cup stalwarts for the green and gold back in the day.
“I came up playing with the best doubles team in the world, the Woodies, at the time,” he said. They come into this format and they don’t get to play a match? And they have made that a massive priority? I don’t think that’s right.”
The changes made in 2019 were made for myriad reasons. To help entice higher-ranked players (and all players) to commit to the competition was a main priority, with the thinking that making ties more digestible and less physically demanding would foster more participation.
But there have been side effects, such as diluting the doubles and removing the drama that used to come from having ties linger over three days with doubles center-staged on Saturday.
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