Tennis: “The atmosphere? It’s not great…”, the Davis Cup does not attract crowds

” The atmosphere ? It’s not great. It’s sad to see this room empty, but that’s normal…” Adrian Mannarino doesn’t even pretend to believe it. While waiting perhaps for a miraculous upturn in the weekend, the new Davis Cup formula does not raise crowds.

The Rothenbaum Tennis Center in Hamburg, where the Blues play with Germany, Belgium and Australia, has more than 13,000 seats. We do not do more across the Rhine for tennis. A hundredth of this capacity would have been enough for the first Australia-Belgium match, as the enclosure sounded hollow, almost reminiscent of the dark hours of confinement.

At 65 euros the cheapest place to attend qualifying matches (the final phase will take place at the end of November in Malaga), it is not surprising that the Hamburg public kindly abstained. They were 2,500 on Wednesday to come and see Germany beat France (2-1). Far from the 4,000 to 5,000 expected.

In the three other sites selected (Bologna, Valencia and Glasgow), the prices are much lower. From 15 euros the holy seat in Italy or 90 euros the pack for the three meetings of Spain at home. The Scottish organizers have probably already eaten their white bread on Wednesday with a Great Britain – United States won by the Americans in the decisive double in front of a room on fire as in the best hours of the event. And the appearance of world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz on Friday against Canada on the Pabellon Fuente de San Luis court, 2:30 a.m. from his home, should raise the temperature in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.

For the rest, when the host country is not concerned, it is better to go to the Interclubs to find warmth… “Of course we would have preferred the format before”, slips Benjamin Bonzi, who has not never knew the original version but had a small preview at the beginning of March in Pau, when France won their play-off against Ecuador.

Since 2018, and the burial of the venerable competition born in 1900, Gerard Piqué and his company Kosmos have been looking in vain for the martingale to bring in money. But for the time being, the veteran FC Barcelona defender is losing as many balls as he has on the pitch… Present in Hamburg to support the French, Gilles Moretton can only see the damage. The position of the president of the FFT has not changed. The Davis Cup (or what’s left of it) is heading for disaster.

“I pleaded against the reform, he confided to us at the dawn of the last Roland-Garros. We are really going into the wall because the format changes three times in three years, I know that Kosmos has suffered losses economically. I had Gerard Pique and agent Fernando Soler in my office, they came to tell me that they absolutely wanted France to host a chicken (Editor’s note: against financial conditions deemed prohibitive). I felt like a sinking ship. We have reached the limit where money has taken precedence over everything that the Davis Cup represented. He killed everything. I stay active, I really wish I could do something…”

The Blues may unwittingly have a solution. If they lose this Thursday against Australia for their second Group C meeting, they will boycott the rest of the competition in spite of themselves…

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