Jamie Murray says new-look Davis Cup will attract majority of tennis players
"Why are players not going to want to partake in that and have the opportunity to make a lot more money than they would at almost every other event on the calendar?"
Friday 31 August 2018 17:54, UK
Jamie Murray expects money to buy support from the majority of players for the new-look Davis Cup with the competition offering massive incentives.
The International Tennis Federation, which runs the Davis Cup, has partnered with Gerard Pique's Kosmos investment group to revamp the competition.
Kosmos have pledged to plough three billion dollars (£2.3 billion) into tennis over 25 years, with each edition of the Davis Cup offering around £20m in prize money.
The change of format, with home and away ties largely replaced by a World Cup-style tournament from next year onwards, has drawn plenty of criticism from current and former players.
But the key question around the sustainability of the new format centres on whether or not it can tempt enough of the leading players to play, particularly given the competition from the ATP's World Team Cup, which launches in January 2020.
Murray said: "It can be sustainable if the players turn up to play and, the way I look at it, you've now got two brand new events with huge prize money.
"Why are players not going to want to partake in that and have the opportunity to make a lot more money than they would at almost every other event on the calendar?
"The new Davis Cup, you win a match in February, the players are guaranteed 600,000 dollars. It's a lot of money. Split that four ways, or the singles guys are maybe taking 200,000 each, and that's just for turning up.
"Will Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer turn up? I don't know because they're obviously not influenced by that. But I'm sure 95 per cent of the player group will think, 'it's a great opportunity for me to make a lot of money'."
Murray is familiar with the complicated politics of the tennis world through his role on the ATP Player Council and will be involved in making a success of the World Team Cup.
It initially appeared the two team competitions would be staged only five or six weeks apart, with the Davis Cup in November and the World Team Cup in January, but Pique has now expressed a wish for the Davis Cup to be held in September.
That makes more sense to Murray but would mean it competing with Federer's Laver Cup and ATP events.
"Davis Cup has been slowly dying for quite a long time," said Murray. "Obviously, with the ATP creating the World Team Cup, that forced the hand of the ITF to do something.
"They've obviously got big backing from this Kosmos group - hopefully the finances are in order and it is sustainable because, if they have it for two or three years and then the money's not there, that's obviously a disaster.
"If the finals are at the end of the year, that's not ideal for players. They want to try to move it to September it seems like, which is obviously better purely from a player point of view. I'm sure tournaments wouldn't be happy with that, which I understand.
"It's not easy. They had to take a step at some point, they've done that now. It's never going to be perfect for everyone and there's always going to be people that complain."
Murray has not missed a Davis Cup tie since 2014 and is set to play in Great Britain's clash with Uzbekistan in Glasgow next month, potentially alongside brother Andy.
Before that, he has hopes of winning a third Grand Slam title with Brazilian partner Bruno Soares at the US Open, and the in-form pair eased into the second round with a 6-2 6-3 victory over Guido Pella and Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
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