Rafael Nadal says there is no room in tennis for both the Davis Cup and the new ATP Cup, and has urged administrators to create one “big world team cup competition” in their place.

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Over 10 days in three venues on either side of this sprawling, hurting continent, nearly 220,000 fans gave the latest iteration of team tennis a qualified welcome as 24 nations and nearly 120 players competed for a prize with no history but much promise. It ended with Serbia being crowned champions.

However, like the new-format Davis Cup finals in Madrid less than two months ago, it was an imperfect success. If Spain got a B+, Australia probably did too, in more trying circumstances and vastly different conditions. But this is a phoney war that surely cannot last.

Nadal, who won all his eight matches when Spain won the Davis Cup, said after losing to Novak Djokovic in the second singles here on Sunday night: “Two World Cups in one month is not real. It is not possible. We need to find a way to make a deal [between] the ITF and ATP to create a big world team cup competition, not two world cups [so close together]. That’s a confusion for the spectators, and we need to be clear in our sport. For the health of our sport, it is mandatory that we fix it.”

Both are admirable dreams, of course – just flawed in concept, delivery and scheduling. They reflect the diversity of a fast-changing world, with ethnicity and passion moving across boundaries with all the unstoppable force of nature. It is the human element of jealousy and power-mongering that has prevented a compromise.

Play Video 1:05 Novak Djokovic leads Serbia to victory over Spain in ATP Cup – video

In a country where sport is as much an addiction as a religion – a true opiate of the masses – the support of fans otherwise distracted by the heat, wind and fire that have devastated Australia for months was a welcome constant. It was also as mixed as vegetables in a pot, much of it springing from roots far away.

Indeed, it has seemed at moments that a disproportionate slice of the 70,000 Serbian diaspora had descended on the venues in Brisbane and here in Sydney, which played a significant part in their semi-final win over Russia, and was raucous again in Sundaynight’s final, although there were plenty of Spaniards to counterpunch in kind.

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In the 108th edition of the Davis Cup, rebranded as the World Cup of Tennis, 18 countries were crammed into three courts in Madrid for a week. It was ludicrously ambitious and some matches finished closer to breakfast the following morning than the last train home at night.

Total attendance was hard to pin down but some estimates put it at around 140,000 – 80,000 fewer than the ATP Cup. On day one in Madrid and in the final, the hosts had no problem filling the main arena, which holds 12,000, while the two smaller courts, of 3,500 and 2,500, too often echoed to the dreaded curse of unsold seats.

There were small crowds here, too, in the round-robin matches but, once the caravan left Perth and Brisbane for the knockout stages in Sydney, the atmosphere improved noticeably. While there were matches where complimentary tickets looked to be padding the numbers, the enthusiasm was genuine and the tennis was often superb, rarely dull.

Whether it was better trying to squeeze six groups of three into three courts in Madrid or spread six groups of four across an entire country is a tough call.

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Neither strategy is ideal. The only venues big enough to bring so many teams and players together are at the grand slam tournaments and, until either or both of the ATP and the ITF build a dedicated site for team finals – or Nadal’s World Team Cup – the anomaly will persist. If the era of home-and-away is dead, a lasting and workable alternative is needed.

The first ATP Cup was saved by the players. There have been heroes on show nearly every day and every night: Alex de Minaur, Nick Kyrgios, Dan Evans, Dusan Lajovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Denis Shapovalov, Roberto Bautista Agut, Daniil Medvedev. All brought their magic to the entertainment.

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The team zones, parked in the corners just yards from the baseline, gave the action lively relevance, a noises-off chorus for the main antagonists. The bank of statistics available to coaches and squad members were useful, if not universally embraced. Djokovic revealed he had brought his own. And there have been inexplicable failures, such as the world No 7, Alexander Zverev, who had a total meltdown and will do well to recover in time for Melbourne.

There were some spectacular tantrums. Medvedev bashed the umpire’s chair with his racket, like a five-year-old demanding sweets. Shapovalov swore at the Serbian crowd, with justification – and the umpire, Carlos Bernardes, told them to “go home” if they couldn’t be quiet.

Dan Evans gave the Australian crowd a burst of Birmingham invective they no doubt were familiar with. Tsitsipas’s mother told him off for accidentally hitting his father with his racket. And several other rackets met a messy end, as ever. Some things in tennis never change.