The Davis Cup

The Davis Cup is an annual International Team event for men, named after Dwight F. Davis, the Harvard scholar who designed the format of the competition and purchased the trophy.

The competition was founded in 1900 as a challenge between the United States and Great Britain, and has grown in popularity so much over the years that in 2007 a staggering 137 nations entered teams.

The first ever Davis Cup match took place (under its original moniker of the International Lawn Tennis Challenge) between Great Britain and the United States at the Longwood Cricket Club in Boston, Massachusetts with the Americans winning the first three matches. The next tournament took place in 1902 with the USA again emerging victorious.

By the 1905 tournament the tournament had grown and included teams from Belgium, Austria, France and Australasia (a joint team from Australia and New Zealand), and by 1920 there were over 20 countries playing in the competition. In 1927 France won the Davis Cup for the first time and embarked on a run that saw them win the following six tournaments after which time the United States and Great Britain regained the control.

The current Davis Cup format was introduced in 1981 with 16 nations competing each year. The remainder of the countries were split into regional groups in a league format in which they can be promoted or relegated. 1991 was also the year the tournament began to be sponsored by NEC, and the input of sponsorship money meant that there was a prize fund for the first time.

Today, the Davis Cup attracts the worlds top players, who take pride in competing for their countries and enjoy taking part in the only tennis tournament in the world in which they compete in a team.

Davis Cup Format

The Davis Cup features the top 16 national teams in the world according to International Tennis Federation rankings, with the top two teams from the previous year seeded numbers one and two. This is called the World Group.

The remainder of the competing nations are divided into three regional zones (The Americas, Asia/Oceania, and Europe/Africa). The elimination rounds between each of the competing nations are held in one of the competing countries and are spread over four weekends throughout the year.

The 16 teams in the World Group play a four round elimination tournament

The World Group is the top group and includes the world's best 16 national teams. Teams in the World Group play a four-round elimination tournament. The losers of the first-round matches go to a World Group playoff round, where they meet the winners from Group I of the regional zones, with the playoff round winners qualifying to play in the World Group for the following years tournament and the losers relegated to playing in Group I in their respective zone.

The three Regional Zones are divided into four groups with Groups I and II taking part in elimination rounds, Groups III and IV play in a league format with promotion and relegation.

In the Davis Cup the term “tie” means an elimination round and the word “rubber” means an individual match, so in the World Group tournament the 16 nations compete in 8 first round ties with the winners progressing to 4 quarter final ties and so on until they reach the final.

A tie consists of 5 rubbers which are played over the course of three days. To win the tie the nation must win 3 or more of the five rubbers. The first two rubbers are singles matches and are generally played by the nation’s best players, the third rubber is a doubles match and the remaining two rubbers are singles games, usually featuring the players who played the first two rubbers but with them swapping opponents. If by the time the fourth and fifth rubbers are played one nation has already qualified, they are allowed to nominate a junior player to play the tie and rest the better players for the next round, which has the added benefit of giving the junior player some Davis Cup experience.

Davis Cup Trivia

• The Women’s equivalent of the Davis Cup is the Federation Cup.
• The youngest ever player to compete in the Davis Cup was Mohammed Akhter Hossain of Bangladesh, who competed when he was just 13 years and 326 days old. The oldest player ever to compete was Gadonfin Koptigan Yaka from Togo at 60 years and 247 days.
• Croatia became the only unseeded team ever to win the Davis Cup when they won in 2005.
• The only nation to have competed in every Davis Cup is Great Britain.
• The United States hold the title for the most Davis Cup wins with 32, 7 of those won consecutively from 1920-1926.
• South Africa won the Davis Cup in 1974 without lifting a racquet in the final tie when India refused to play in the final in a protest against the South African Governments policy on apartheid.

The US Open

The US Open is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments and is competed on an annual basis at Flushing Meadows in New York.

Since moving to Flushing Meadows in 1978, the tennis has been played on a surface known as DecoTurf II, a hard court surface, and the color of the inner courts was changed to blue in 2005 as it is believed that this makes the ball more visible to players, umpires and, perhaps more importantly, the worldwide television audience. The outer courts remained green.

The US Open officially began in 1968 as an amalgamation of five different tournaments: the US National Championships, the US Women’s National Championships, the US Women’s National Doubles Championships, the US Men’s Doubles Championships and the US Mixed Doubles Championships.  All of these events are contested today under the banner of the US Open.

The US Open made another piece of history in 1970 when it became the first Grand Slam tournament to use a tiebreak at the end of a set, a tradition it maintains today as it is the only one of the Big Four that uses the tiebreak at the end of the fifth set instead of continuing with service games.

Held annually over a fortnight in August and September during the weeks that bracket Labor Day weekend, making it the last Grand Slam of the year, the tournament draws huge crowds to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York, named after the legendary Californian tennis player who was one of the early stars of the competition.

The main court was opened in 1997 and seats over 22,000 people. Named after the winner of the inaugural tournament in 1968, the Arthur Ashe stadium hosts the semi finals, finals and opening matches featuring the top seeded players and local favourites. Opened in 1978 the next largest court is the Louis Armstrong Stadium, containing 5,500 seats followed by the adjoining Grandstand Stadium, there are three other courts boasting a capacity of over 1,000.

Fun Facts about the US Open

The total prize money for the 2010 US Open was a staggering $22.6 million. The winner of the men’s and women’s titles received $1.7 million apiece with the runners up receiving $850,000 each. Those players knocked out in the first round received $3,000.

When Arthur Ashe won the US Open in 1968 he was classed as an amateur due to his position as a lieutenant in the U.S Army and was not allowed to accept the $14,400 prize money, instead, he went home with his $20 per diem.

The youngest man ever to win the US Open was Pete Sampras, who, in 1990 won aged 19 years, 0 months and 28 days.

The youngest woman to win was Tracey Austin in 1979 at the tender age of 16 years, 8 months and 28 days.

The US Open trophy is made by Tiffany and Co.

The fastest serve recorded at the US Open was in 2004 when the USA’s Taylor Dent served at a massive 145mph.

The player who can boast the most overall US Open titles is Martina Navratilova, who won 16 titles over the course of her career: 4 singles titles, 9 doubles titles and 3 mixed doubles titles.

The most men’s titles won by a single player since the beginning of the Open era in 1968 is five, and three players have managed it: Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer.

The most consecutive US Open titles won by a single player are the five titles won by Roger Federer, winning in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Chris Evert holds the record for the most women’s singles titles having won 6 times, and also holds the record for the most consecutive women’s titles having won in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978.

Wimbledon

Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the game, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and the only one to be played on grass.

The Wimbledon tennis tournament traditionally takes place in late June and early July and runs for two weeks, with the women’s final played on the second Saturday and the men’s final on the Sunday. Each year, alongside the five major tournaments that are contested there are also four junior events and four invitational events.

Wimbledon is the only tennis tournament to enforce a strict dress code for competitors, insisting that they play in traditional white, and although the rules have been relaxed slightly in recent years the players still respectfully adhere to them.

The courts at Wimbledon are all arranged around the biggest in the middle,” Centre court” where all of the finals take place, and No.1 Court, both of which are only used for the Wimbledon tournament. Both of these courts will host matches during the London Olympics in 2012, used for the first time in their illustrious history for an event other than Wimbledon.

In 2009 a retractable roof was placed over the 15,000 capacity Centre court in order for play to continue through rain, and more occasionally, extreme heat. Centre court hosts the semi finals and finals of the tournament in addition to earlier round matches of the top seeded players and local favourites. The Royal Box is situated at the southern end of the court, and the British Royal family regularly attend, it is traditional for the players to bow or curtsey when entering or exiting the court in the presence of either the Queen or the Prince of Wales.

Wimbledon is widely considered to be the most important tennis championship in the world and draws all of the top players. The tournament is divided into 5 main events: Men’s singles, Ladies singles, Men’s doubles, Ladies doubles and Mixed doubles. Each singles event consists of 128 players, all battling to win a share of the 21 million dollars prize money on offer.

At the northern end of the grounds there is a giant television screen on which important matches are broadcast to the crowd that gathers on the hill, named after the popular British players of the day, in the past few years the hill has been known as “Rusedski Ridge”, “Henman Hill” and “Murray Mound”, showing that the British still have a sense of humor despite the fact that the last British player to win a Wimbledon singles title was Virginia Wade in 1977, and the last time they had a men’s champion was back in 1936, when Fred Perry lifted the trophy.

Wimbledon was first broadcast live on the television in 1937 in black and white, and the first match broadcast in color was in 1967. It now enjoys a huge worldwide audience, with an estimated 5.6 million people tuning in to the 2010 men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych, and an average television audience of 2.3 million for Serena Williams win over Vera Zvonareva in the women’s final.

Martina Navratilova is the most successful player to have played at Wimbledon, winning 9 Wimbledon titles during her long career, while the most successful male player to date is Pete Sampras, with 7 Wimbledon titles to his name.