Davis Cup Structure
The Davis Cup Tennis Tournament is held over four weekends at different times of the year, at various venues around the world.
The Davis Cup structure is based on a division of play into four groups:
- The World Group, consisting of the world’s top 16 tennis-playing nations
- The Americas Zone
- The Europe/Africa Zone
- The Asia/Oceania Zone
In turn, each regional zone is divided into a further four groups.
The World Group
The World Group consists of a four-round knockout competition. National teams are seeded by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) based on the ITF ranking system, which takes performance over the past four years – with heavier weighting given to recent performance – into account.
The top two seeds of the tournament are always the defending champion and runner-up of the previous year’s finals tie. For 2007, Russia and Argentina are the top two seeds – they contested the 2006 final.
The losers of the first round in the World Group participate in a World Group playoff, where they contend with the winners of Group 1 of the regional zones.
- Winners of the playoffs will play in the 2008 World Group
- Losers will play in Group 1 of the respective regional zones
The Regional Zones
In the Davis Cup structure, each Zone is divided into four groups.
Groups 1 and II play a knockout format with the losing teams from the World Group playoffs. Losers are relegated to a lower group.
Groups III and IV play a round robin competition, with promotion and relegation to the different groups based on the outcomes of the various ties.
National Teams
Each participating nation has a squad of four players and a non-playing captain. The captain nominates the players who will compete in each match of a tie.
A tie is made up of 5 matches held over a three-day period. The first two matches – or rubbers – played on day 1 are singles. A doubles match is played on day 2 and two final singles matches are played on day 3. The same opponents can’t play on both days 1 and 3.
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