A history of the Davis Cup tournament
The Davis Cup is the largest annual international team competition in men’s tennis. It is looked after by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The tournament is played in a knock out manner between the teams of competing nations.
The history of the competition goes back to 1900 when it was played for the first time between the United States of America and Great Britain as a contest. A total of around 134 countries sent their teams into the tournament in 2005. According to statistics, Australia and the United States are the most successful nations of the competition by winning 28 and 32 Davis Cup tournaments respectively. However, in the present era, Spain is the champion of the Davis Cup.
In 1899, four participants of the tennis team of Harvard University formulated the competition. They basically desired to dare the British to a tennis contest. Dwight F. Davis, one of the four players of the Harvard University later on formed the entire format of the tournament after their particular associations of the lawn tennis approved it. Davis also purchased a sterling silver trophy for the competition from his personal expenses from the Shreve, Crump and Low. They in turn authorized a well made design from William B. Durgin's who was from Concord, New Hampshire, formed by Rowland Rhodes, an Englishmen.
Davis, with a passage of time became a leading politician in the United States of America in the 1920’s. He served as the U.S. Secretary of War during the period 1925-1929 and as Governor General of the Philippines from 1929 to 1032.
The place where the first match took place between Great Britain and the United States of America in 1900 is called the Longwood Cricket Club which is located in Boston. Dwight Davis was playing for the American side that totally surprised the British team by getting through the first three matches of the competition. Both the nations did not play in the next season. In 1902, the United States of America won another game of the tournament. Later on, the competition further expanded and several other nations including Austria, Belgium, France as well as a joint team from New Zealand and Australia by the name of Australasia also took part in the competition.
Initially, the competition was named as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge which later on became popular as the Davis Cup after the trophy of Dwight Davis, the Harvard player.
Australian team dominated the scene till 1967 by winning fifteen titles in a time span of eighteen years. The United States of America has so far succeeded the most in the competition followed by Australia, Great Britain, France and then Sweden.
Four nations managed to win the Davis Cup until 1973 which includes Great Britain, United States, Australia and France. As a result, all of them got a chance to host a Grand Slam event. However, nothing is permanent and so was their dominance which was eventually wrecked in 1974 when the Indian team reached the final match of the tournament along with South Africa.
South Africa in that match was handed a walk over win by the Indian side that did not play as a protest against the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa. The final next year featured two foreign countries in which Sweden defeated Czechoslovakia with three games to two. Since then, a lot of different nations have managed to claim the trophy.
The Davis Cup competition is stretched over a period of four weekends during the season. Each knock out round between contesting countries is held in one of the nations. The country to host the match is decided by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) prior to the start of the tournament on an annual basis.
Some of the Davis Cup champions over the years include Davis, Wilding, Seixas, Brooks, Vilas, Agassi, Martin, Sampras, Federer, Kuerten, Roddick, Borg, Rosewall, McGregor, Alexander, Philippoussis, Becker, Austin, McEnroe, , Rafter, Kramer, , Crawford, Fraser, Hewitt, Lacoste and many more.
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