Davis Cup: Men's Tennis Team Event
The premier international team event for men’s tennis is the Davis Cup. It is organized by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is held annually between teams from different countries in a knock-out format. It was also known as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge but was popularly known as the Davis Cup. The Women’s version of the Davis Cup is the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Fed Cup).
1947 Davis Cup match in the NetherlandsFormat Changes
By 2013, 130 countries had joined the competition. The top 16 national teams (the World Group) competed yearly for the Davis Cup in a competition held over four weekends during the year. The World Group played a four-round elimination tournament. Teams that lost the first-round matches were sent to the World Group Playoffs round. Teams not in the World Group were designated into Zone Groups, divided into three regions – America, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa. In each region, there were three to four divisions, Group I being the highest and IV being the lowest. Group III and IV were week-long events played in one location. Groups were separated into round-robin pools with play-offs then deciding promotion and relegation. A similar format was used for each Group though it depended on the number of teams joining.
From 2019 onwards, the Davis Cup tournament for the World Group (called the Davis Cup Finals) changed to an 18-team event held in November each year. The first edition of the new event was held in Madrid in November 2019, and was won by Spain. The new format features two singles matches and one doubles match, instead of the best-of-5 series, with the matches changing from best of 5 sets to best of 3.
Davis Cup Articles
Related Pages
- About the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Federation Cup)
- Other major tennis events
- Tennis Events Calendar
- More about the sport of tennis
- What is tennis?
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