Davis Cup

Davis Cup
Initially the Davis Cup was known as the Challenge as it was inaugurated in the year 1900. What happened in the Davis Cup was that, the reigning champion automatically advances to the final round of the tournament, while other teams face each other in their quest to compete against the previous year's champion or the defending champion.

This went on like that till 1923, when the teams where further sub divided into to zones. One zone was named the American Zone, while the other zone was named the Europe Zone.

With the tournament nearing the end, the two winners from both zones would compete with each other in an Inter-Zonal Zone, winner of which moves on to face the defending champion for the cup.

In addition to the American Zone and the Europe Zone, another zone was added in 1955 named the Easter Zone. Since now there were three zones competing for a shot against the defending champion, one of the three zones went into the first round of inter zonal zone challenger rounds after receiving a bye.

Further sub division was done when Europe Zone was further divided into ?Europe Zone A' and ?Europe Zone B'. That way the winners from all the four zones competed in Inter-Zonal Zone challenger rounds.

Further amendments in the rules were made in 1972, as now the defending champion also had to compete in all the rounds, and ultimately the Cup was awarded to the tournament Champion.

But that system was amended yet again in 1981, when tiered system of competition was put into use. In this system 16 of the best teams from across the globe move forward to compete in the World Group, where they are further divided into four zones and all other national teams compete in one of the four groups.

In Davis cup the word Tie and rubber are used in their unusual sense. For example Tie in rest of the competitions would mean a draw, or may be elimination or a knock out round.

But tie in Davis cup does not mean a draw because of the equal scores of the competitors; tie instead means a round of competition. While on the other hand the word Rubber means a match. Difference between the two is that, Tie is a round, while rubber is a match.

The cup works on the basics of tie and rubber, in which teams from 16 nations first face each other 8 first round ties, the 8 winners of which move on to compete in 4 quarter final ties, 4 winners from these quarter finals move to compete in 2 semi final round ties, and the two winners from the semi final round ties move on to the final round tie.

5 rubbers or matches are played in each tie or round. The matches are played usually in 3 days, which mostly is the weekend. When the nation wins at least 3 or more than 3 rubbers out of five, the tie is awarded to that nation.