By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, November 14, 2025
Photo: Davis Cup/ITF Facebook
The Davis Cup enjoyed a traditional homecoming this year.
Now, ATP executives and stars are advocating reconfiguring the Davis Cup as a biennial event.
In the last two days, the top ranked men in the world –Carlos Alcaraz AND Jannik the Sinner— Both have said publicly that they would prefer the Davis Cup to be contested every other year rather than as an annual event.
The Davis Cup Final 8 is set for Tuesday, November 18 to Sunday, November 23 in Bologna, Italy.
World No. 1 Alcaraz, who will lead Spain’s bid to capture its seventh Davis Cup – and first since 2019 – says it is time to change the format of the world’s longest-running team sports competition from an annual event to once every two or three years.
“If I’m honest with you, I think Davis Cup is one of those tournaments that you’re not used to feeling and playing because you’re playing for your country, you’re playing with your teammates,” Alcaraz told media in Turin. “It’s completely different, I think it’s one of the most privileged things you can do in our sport, representing your country.
“I agree that they should do something about this event because I think playing every year, I mean, it’s not as good as it could be if you play every two or three years. I think if the tournament is played like every two years or every three years, the players, the commitment of the players, it’s going to be even more because it’s unique, it’s different. You don’t get to play every year.”
World No. 2 Jannik Sinner, who led Italy to back-to-back Davis Cup championships, crashed out of this year’s Davis Cup final 8.
However, Sinner supports changing the Davis Cup because he feels an every-other-year format would result in more top players competing and give fans of the finalists a better opportunity to see their nations play for the Cup.
“I think playing with this schedule, the Davis Cup, it’s difficult to have every year from every country the best players in the world,” Sinner told media in Turin today. “What I would like, what I could potentially see in the future, is to have the Davis Cup over two years, so you could put the semi-finals at the beginning of the year and the final at the end of the year somewhere.
“It’s also nice where you can pick, flip the coin, whatever, and you play in this stadium and you sell tickets. So if you play in Bologna, it’s Australia vs. USA, of course there will be spectators. I’m not saying that. But at the same time, why not make it a real Davis Cup competition?”
The support from the world’s top two to change the Davis Cup format comes days after ATP Chairman and former ATP Pro Andrea Gaudenzi advocated moving the Davis Cup to a biennial event.
Gaudenzi cites three reasons supporting the change:
- Since the Davis Cup bills itself as the Tennis World Cup, why not emulate a bit of the FIFA World Cup (soccer’s World Cup is held once every four years) to build anticipation and give the Davis Cup more attention.
- The format change, Gaudenzi claims, would allow for the return of home-and-away semifinals and finals, bringing elite competition to cities that don’t have annual tennis events.
- A format change would give players a longer off-season in non-Davis Cup years.
“I really love Davis Cup. I think it’s a great event. I probably had the best matches of my career there,” Gaudenzi said. “I think it’s a tremendous asset for tennis. We all have to come together to make it the World Cup of tennis.
“I think the best product is home and away. I think the atmosphere, I played a final in Milan, probably the best memory of my career and playing in different places. You go to different places. You go to cities where we don’t get tournament tennis.”
The Davis Cup returned to the home and away format in September. The host United States fell to the Czech Republic in a tie hosted in Delray Beach.
Alcaraz said he values the Davis Cup as a vital competition, but maintains the change is necessary because the season is simply too long.
“I really want to win the Davis Cup one day because for me it’s a really important, important tournament,” Alcaraz said. “Jannik has won it twice, I think Lorenzo once or twice too.
“For me, I would say it’s normal for them because the season has been so long. They can hold it so they have an extra week to recover, to have a break, to do pre-season, which is understandable. It’s normal.
But I would say they had to do something to make the Davis Cup unique.”
You could argue that making the Davis Cup a biennial event would not only destroy the tradition of the competition that began in 1900, but would have the opposite effect of the ATP’s intent and would be marginalized rather than promoted by such a change.
While it seems highly unlikely that the ITF will agree to change the tradition of the annual Davis Cup competition, Gaudenzi says the game’s governing bodies must come together to make the change to condense the tennis calendar and give the Davis Cup maximum exposure.
“In the ideal world I think if the Davis Cup could go home and away and over two years,” Gaudenzi said. “There’s no World Cup in sports that happens every year, to my knowledge. First of all, I think it would be better for them, for the product, and it would also create a huge release of pressure from the calendar.”
The 113 Davis Cup Final 8 dates for next week are here:
quarter final 1 – France – Belgium
Tuesday 18 November – 16.00 (CET)
quarter final 2 – Italy – Austria
Wednesday 19 November – 16.00 (CET)
quarter FINAL 3 – Spain – Czech Republic
Thursday, November 20 – 10.00 (CET)
quarter final 4 – Argentina – Germany
Thursday, November 20 – 17.00 (CET)
SEMI-FINALS 1 (QF1 v QF2)
Friday 21 November – 16.00 (CET)
SEMI-FINALS 2 (QF3 v QF4)
Saturday, November 22 – 12:00 (CET)
finale
Sunday, November 23 – 15.00 (CET)
