Monday, December 2, 2024, 17:48
Italy, the great power of current tennis with the conquest of the last two Davis Cups and with Jannik Sinner as number one in the world, will host the next three editions of the final phase of the competition, in 2025, 2026 and 2027. This movement, planned and logical for a long time, ends the five years of the Davis Cup in Spain, in 2019 at the Caja Mágica, with Spain champion, in 2021 at the Madrid Arena, where it won Russia, and the last three at the Martín Carpena in Malaga, with titles for Canada and Italy.
The other option was to take the competition to China, which brought with it several problems such as the lack of public attendance, as well as the long travel for the tennis players in the middle of the European ‘indoor’ tour. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has finally opted for Italy, one of the countries that has been most committed to tennis in recent years, with a large number of ITF and Challengers tournaments, as well as to currently host a Masters 1,000 like the one in Rome and the ATP Finals in Turin. In addition, until a couple of years ago it also organized the Next Gen Finals in Milan, which brings together the best U-21s in the world.
The 2025 Davis Cup finals will be held in Bologna, which has already hosted group stage matches of the competition in other years. In addition, the Davis Cup debuts a new format, as it replaces the group stage, which was held in four different cities, with two eliminatory rounds with the old home and away format. Thus, to be in the final phase of Bologna, Spain, captained by David Ferrer, will have to overcome two qualifying rounds.
The first of them will be played in February, after the Australian Open, against Switzerland. It will be the first time that Spain plays outside its borders since the semifinals of the 2018 edition in which they lost to France. The Swiss team no longer has in its ranks Roger Federer, retired, nor Stan Wawrinka, outside the 150 best in the world, and does not have any player in the ‘top 100’. His best racket is that of Alexander Ritschard, 118 in the world, but his great hopes lie in the young Jerome Kym (134) and Leandro Riedl (135), aged 21 and 22, respectively. Spain fell last November in the quarterfinals of the last edition of Malaga against the Netherlands, which was Rafa Nadal’s farewell.
