The Davis World Cup?

Rumors have been circulating for a while now. Among the fans. Among the players. The Davis Cup has lost meaning! The format is redundant, even irrelevant in today's world. The tennis world is calling out for change!

But are they? Really?

It seems that this opinion is only really held by the teams that aren't doing all that well. It is one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world, and certainly the most prestigious team tournament, and it is a cup every country wants to win — even if their chances are no more than aspirational.

With that beside, small countries — ones who have little chance of winning, or progressing very far at all — can still benefit from these home-and-away proceedings. A host country will take money from their matches, and this can be all-important for countries with some fledging talent. It is money that can be put back into training up their players.

On the flip side, however, there are plenty of negatives to be seen.

Is it even really an event? For a team that reaches the final, they will have played four matches, split over the course of a year, beginning in February and ending in late November. And if a team is beaten in their first match, they have to wait until July to play again, and then no more games again until the following year.

And because it is played in different countries all year round, there is no base of supporters. People will support their country, and few will travel abroad to see an away match. What's more, who has the money to see more than one away match, should their country do well? For example, if you were from Switzerland, you wouldn't really want to go to Australia for one away match, over one weekend, then return home, only to have to fly out to perhaps Argentina a few months later, again, for just one weekend. It's impractical.

Players don't want such a prestigious tournament to just go away, for it to be scrapped. But for them, it is becoming more of a hassle. The July matches come the week after Wimbledon, and if a player had a good run, they are simply going to be too tired to play two more best-of-five matches, especially if the competition could be quite tough.

Why not revitalize the tournament? Give it another format.

There are already other team tournaments which work very well, and they do embody the team spirit quite well. The Dusseldorf Team Championships, for example, or the Hopman Cup in Perth?

Why not turn the Davis Cup into a World Cup?

It could retain its prestigious title, but the format could be revised, to get the most out of it. Held every two years, on non-Olympic years, the new Davis World Cup could be hosted by a different country each time, rotating around the continents, so as to reduce the amount of traveling fans would have to do. There would be none of this Group 1 or Group 2 nonsense; there would be a group stage, followed by quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final.

The current tennis calendar is pretty packed, but with a little shuffling, I am sure it could all be arranged. After all, things get shuffled to allow the Olympics a place.

Something can be learned from the other team events already around, in that there are only three sets played. However, what is the Davis Cup without its five set format? Then why aren't the formats blended? Three sets for the group stages, and five sets for the knockout stages.

And in spite of the Davis Cup calling itself a team event, it could really be more-so. In 2009, the Czech Republic reached the final using just two players: Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek, who played singles on Friday and Sunday, and teamed up for the doubles on the Saturday.

They had an astonishing record ... until they met Spain in the Final, where both Berdych and Stepanek lost their opening singles rubbers and the doubles rubber to lose the match. The other two Czechs on the team, who had not been given a chance to play all year, were allowed to play the "dead" rubbers. They lost these, also.

To eradicate this, there could be again fiver rubbers, but with two doubles matches, and three singles, and no player would be allowed to play more than one singles or doubles match. This would allow perhaps some of the weaker players to come out and play for their country on a big stage and show their worth. They wouldn't be overshadowed or left out because their country already has two top-50 players.

The tennis world would come together; fans flocking from all over the globe, not just for their favorite players, but also to support their country, in what has the potential to become the greatest tennis tournament on earth.

There are no official talks as yet as to how the tournament might be improved, but it is on the minds of many a fan, and many a player. The tournament itself has so much history and prestige that it cannot be dropped, but the current format has simply become redundant. Changes are needed, but when they will come, we will not know.