Roger Federer hopes new Davis Cup lives up to promises

While unsure of the wisdom of this weeks sweeping Davis Cup reform Roger Federer has called on tennis officials to make good on promises regarding the newlook competitionI feel sad about it you know not to have the Davis Cup as it used to be It will never be the same for the next generation the 20time Grand Slam winner said on Saturday at the ATPWTA Cincinnati Masters I just hope that every penny of that mass of money will be paid for the next generation Federer saidKosmos an investment group led by Barcelona football star Gerard Pique with Japanese and Chinese support will spend USD 3 billion over 25 years on the new event which will do away with four rounds at home and away venues around the world throughout the year culminating with the final between the last two teams standingInstead there will be a oneweek shootout among 18 nations to be played in November at rotating venues With nearly two decades in the game the 37yearold Federer has a long memory back to another megadeal gone wrong which could have seriously damaged the ATP Tour Weve seen a similar situation way back when with the ATP Tour and it set us back in a big way he saidI dont want that to happen again That incident in 2000 stemmed from the bankruptcy of the Swiss ISL promotion firm that had promised to pay the Tour USD 12 billion over a decade for the rights to the elite Masters events ISL suddenly went bust and the deal never came to fruition although the ATP recovered nicely to its current dominating state in the mens gameFederer won the Davis Cup with Switzerland over France in 2014 and played almost uninterruptedly from his 1999 debut until age 34 in 2015 Clearly the ITF has never historically involved the players he said of the decision The solution is definitely flawed in some waysIm all for innovation and got to give them a chance to some extent It will be interesting to see how its going to workFellow former number one Novak Djokovic a member of the 2010 winning Serbia side shared many of the same Davis Cup sentiments with his Swiss rival but said something had to be done Change was inevitable for the format he said adding that he has supported a format change 15 years ago 10 years ago five years ago and today So it hasnt changedIm really glad that people of ITF are understanding the urgency of changing the format and the schedule It was just not right especially for the top players In the last 10 years you could see that Very few top players have played consistently in the Davis Cup competition which was till recently the only team official team competition we have in our sportCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever