Great Britain, knocked out in the quarter-finals of 2021 Davis Cup Finals, will now not face a qualifier in March; next year's finals will see 16 nations competing in four groups across four cities with the top eight teams advancing to the knockout stages in a neutral fifth host city
Sunday 5 December 2021 15:09, UK
Great Britain and Serbia have received a wild card for the 2022 Davis Cup Finals, which will be held across five cities.
Next year's finals will see 16 nations competing in four groups across four cities with the top eight teams advancing to the knockout stages in a neutral fifth host city.
Abu Dhabi has widely been touted to host the quarter-finals onwards, but the International Tennis Federation said on Sunday the "preferred city" will be confirmed in the next few weeks.
"For the group stages we envision all four of those being teams that are competing in the competition," ITF president David Haggerty said.
A decision on the host cities is expected to be made by the governing body in March.
The 2022 finals will start a day earlier and will be played over 12 days as the season-ending event on the men's tennis calendar.
"This is an evolution and I think next year just takes us one more step into kind of the World Cup of tennis. We're really, really excited," Haggerty added.
This year's 18-nation competition was staged across three cities - Madrid, Turin and Innsbruck - and the Russian Tennis Federation and Croatia will meet in the final in the Spanish capital on Sunday.
Great Britain's 2021 campaign was ended by Germany in the quarter-finals earlier this week in Innsbruck.
Britain, led by Leon Smith, and Serbia will now not need to play in the qualifiers in March to reach next year's tournament finals.
"All our GB players love coming together for these weeks and are keen to have another crack at the trophy again in 2022," Smith said in a statement released by the LTA.
It is the second time since the format of Davis Cup changed to a World Cup-style finals in 2019 that Britain have received a wild card, while they qualified directly for this year's edition by reaching the semi-finals two years ago.
