“It was a problem” Andy Murray reveals concerns about historic tennis competition
Former Davis Cup winner Andy Murray is worried about the event moving to Abu Dhabi citing the potential lack of crowds as a key concern
Andy Murray famously steered the British team to victory in the 2015 Davis Cup but since then a new commercial organisation has acquired the rights to the annual team based tennis event and have brought about huge changes to the format which haven’t gone down well with many involved in the sport. Now the new owners of the Davis Cup, Kosmos, are seeking to move the finals again this time in a big money deal with Abu Dhabi.
Murray represented Britain in 2019 for the first time under the new format which saw the finals week taking place in Madrid. The previous format of the Davis Cup saw each match, including the finals, played in the home country of either of the two teams competing. This meant that you were always guaranteed to have a home crowd that generally created an atmosphere like those at football matches.
Now Murray has said he fears this aspect of the Davis Cup is being lost and could suffer even more if the move to Abu Dhabi is finalised. Murray said in an interview with Eurosport,
“I think it was the thing that made the Davis Cup standout for the players and everything and it was good for the sport. It’s not to say that you couldn’t host it here and have very good crowds, I’m not saying the stands will be empty. But it’s just not the same when you don’t have that partisan crowd. It was a problem when it was in Spain too. I’m just sceptical about enough tennis fans travelling so like, if Spain were playing Russia in the final here, would you get enough Spanish fans travelling and enough Russian fans travelling to make it here? So I think that that’s the concern for me.”
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