La Liga to sponsor new Davis Cup finals

Spanish football top flight La Liga will sponsor tennis’ Davis Cup finals under the tournament’s new guise led by Barcelona centre-back Gerard Pique’s investment group, the ITF announced on yesterday. In an unusual cross-sport move, La Liga will promote the Davis Cup during broadcasts of its live matches.“The cross-sport partnership with La Liga is innovative for the Davis Cup,” said ITF president David Haggerty in a statement. “This will widen our reach to not only tennis fans but other sports enthusiasts.” The 119-year-old Davis Cup competition has traditionally been structured around a 16-nation World Group, contested over four weekends during the year, but will now switch to an 18-team finals, with the inaugural edition in Madrid in November.On Wednesday, Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt criticised Pique, whose investment group Kosmos proposed the planned changes. “I haven’t been a supporter since they first flagged the possible changes,” Hewitt said ahead of his team’s qualifying tie this week against Bosnia.“I think having the finals in one place is ridiculous. I personally don’t think all the top players will play. Now we’re being run by a Spanish football player... that’s like me coming out asking to change things for the Champions League — it’s ridiculous.”The qualifying ties start today, with the 12 winners to join the six automatic qualifiers — Croatia, France, United States, Spain, Argentina and Britain — in November’s finals.