Spiky Piqu goes on the defensive as Davis Cups new look makes slow start | Kevin Mitchell

The Davis Cups brand-new format, as World Cup of Tennis, at Caja Mgica in Madrid provided great worth to fans on the first day those who showed up, a minimum of

There were very few echoes of the past however a reasonable few of today as the World Cup Of Tennis creaked into presence in a lonesome and dark location here on Monday.

They attempted. My, how they attempted … however all the smoke, mirrors, whistles and bells, singing and dancing, shouting and clapping might not camouflage the swaths of empty seats in the Caja Mgica for the opening event of DC Mark II.

While the costly and artistic legerdemain strained to persuade the third-full arena that consigning 119 years of Davis Cup custom to the history books was a great concept, the brand-new competition did get the attention of the faithful.

There was a great deal of sound for Italy and Canada in the afternoon session on court 2; the Russians and Croatia awakened the cheers of their particular hardcore on centre court; and court 3, where Great Britain will definitely bring a larger crowd versus the Netherlands on Wednesday, had Belgium and Colombia going at it like kids at a celebration.

Yet confusion is participated in by unpredictability. As fans are informed in the brand-new methods, they stay part of the experiment. There is good goodwill for this strong shot at conserving the earliest occasion in worldwide group sport. Everybody, it appears, likes Gerard Piqu, whose infant it is , with $3bn promised over 25 years. That is a bit like guaranteeing to bring a totally free turkey round to your home every year, with the affordable expectation you will forget about it after Boxing Day.

Piqu has actually stated this is still a wait-and-see proposal. On Sunday he stated: “It holds true it is a brand-new format and it is something that individuals do not understand yet.” He is truthful enough to confess no one understands if the video game can accommodate 2 so-similar occasions 6 weeks apart– his Davis Cup and the ATP Cup which begins in Australia in January, with numerous of the exact same cast.

It is all excellent worth, mind: 3 matches of your option for EUR25 ( 21) on a cold winter season Monday on the borders of the capital can not be bad. Rafael Nadal is driving the program for Spain and for Piqu, his Barcelona good friend and confidant. This is going to be a long week if Nadal stops working.

As the head of Kosmos Tennis– a subsidiary of his worldwide business formed particularly to run the brand-new Davis Cup– Piqu is delicate to criticism and he dived into Twitter on the first day to set one cynic straight. “Are you sure there are simply 15?” he asked of a tweeter who was a bit harsh in his crowd price quote.