The Polish Tennis Federation (PZT) has announced that they are to launch an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the wake of the new system that has been implemented in the Davis Cup.

A change to the Davis Cup ranking system this year has resulted in the Polish team being placed in World Group III. Even though they scored wins over Romania, Slovenia and Zimbabwe last year to qualify for Group I under the old system. The reason why they have been regulated back to the third group is because the new Kosmos-backed competition takes into account points won over the past four years. Something that has outraged the PZT and their players.

“As the PZT management board, we will fight to return where we should be.” Vice-president Victor Archutowski told the Polish Press Agency.

“We are at the stage of choosing a law firm that will handle the appeal that we will send to CAS. We have already prepared documentation. We will fight. We have interviewed ITF members that give little hope. We should know their answer within two weeks.”

The Federation are appealing for their team to be reinstated back into Group I. If that fails, they will be claiming for compensation from the International Tennis Federation for their players who will have to player in the lower group. The PZT has ruled out the possibility of a boycott because of the impact it could have on the Olympic qualification process for their players.

“We were thinking about setting up a substitute squad, but the players are obliged to perform in them in order to be able to play in the Olympic games afterwards.” Explained Archutowski.

“Next year, we could have had a Davis Cup match in Tokyo, so if they did not play now, we would block them from joining the Olympic tournament.”

Support From allies

In the wake of the ranking system, other countries have also expressed their anger over the current situation. Calude Lamberty, who is the president of Tennis Luxembourg, has sent a formal letter to the ITF. In it, the federation said they ‘disagreed’ and was ‘disappointed’ by the new system. Pledging their full support behind Poland. The letter has also been signed by the national director of the Davis Cup, Markus Stegmann.

“The system applied, depending exclusively on the nations ranking, is at least in our appreciation against all sports principles. In the play-off tie last year in April, our team won against the Georgian team and achieved by that, according to Davis Cup rules, to stay in Group II. Now, after the qualifiers for the world finals, our team is, despite this sporting achievement last year, related to Group III and Georgia, who should have been relegated considering the results of last year, remains instead of Luxemburg in Group II. Even worse is the case of Poland, which gets relegated to Group III instead of going up into Group I.” An extract from the letter reads.

Monaco’s chief representative in the sport has branded the changes as ‘sportingly unacceptable.’ Elizabeth-Ann de Me Massy, who is the president of her national tennis association, says the new format has a negative impact on both players and fans.

The I.T.F. is very performant and productive as far as accumulating actions and decisions which is killing the Davis Cup, one of the most prestigious worldwide Tennis Competition with almost 120 years of History. Now, the new rules concerning the different group levels of the 2019 format are just sportingly unacceptable.

It will be more and more difficult for players and sponsors to keep their motivation and for the fans their enthusiasm. The Monaco Tennis Federation stands fully by other federations facing the same issue: Luxembourg, Poland, Montenegro, Estonia, Namibia and Kenya.

‘Demoralizing’

Outside of Europe, there is also frustration in other countries. Last June Kenya won the Africa Group III championship. Booking their place in the Euro/Africa Group II group at the time. However, following the Davis Cup revamp they are not ranked high enough to play in the group they have technically qualified for in 2018. Kenya believes that have a disadvantage before they were unable to field a team to play in the 2015 team event. Therefore they were unable to get any points.

“We are very disappointed since we didn’t know the changes adopted at the AGM would affect the Davis Cup format in 2019,” Tennis Kenya chairman James Kenani told The Daily Nation. “It’s demoralising to countries even if the prize money in Davis Cup has been increased.”

Kenani has said that both Kenya and Poland launched an appeal to the ITF Arbitration Committee, but it was rejected. Kenya had already put in place a budget of roughly Sh8.7 million for their team to play in Euro/Africa Group II.

“Alternatively, the changes should have come into effect after 2019 since teams had already qualified in 2018. You can’t punish countries who had invested their energies to qualify because a new sponsor has come on board,” Kenani argues. “They say countries are bound to benefit immensely but that is not how to manage events.”

Like Kenya, Namibia are also in the same situation after finishing runners-up in Africa Group III last year.