Later this month, 18 teams will face-off in the 108th Davis Cup Finals for a week-long, World Cup-style tennis event in Madrid. However, organizers admitted that selling tickets hasn’t been as easy as they’d hoped.
According to County Press, the event has faced challenges due to the competition’s new format, which was controversially approved during last year’s International Federation AGM. The Davis Cup Finals will take place in less than two weeks – set to kick-off on November 18 – and the organizers are still trying to recoup the money invested into the event through the Barcelona footballer Gerard Pique’s Kosmos company.
Spain’s matches against Russia and Croatia reportedly sold out the main arena, which holds 12,000 people, and Great Britain sold 3,000 tickets for matches against Netherlands and Kazakhstan, making them the most successful selling country behind the host nation. However, out of the 25 sessions across the three arenas, only 50 percent of tickets sold for nine of them. More than 8,000 tickets are still available for the first two morning sessions in the main arena.
A Spokeswoman for Kosmos said that while the organization is happy with ticket sales for the afternoon sessions and for the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final match, it’s “much more difficult to sell tickets for morning sessions, as happens in all tournaments.”
“We are working with the 17 embassies in Spain in order to reach international communities living in Spain,” she said. “We have economic prices. The cheapest ticket costs 25 euros and you can see a tie (comprising three matches).”
The Davis Cup Finals are slated to take place from November 18 to 24 at the Caja Magica in Madrid, Spain. The format changed this year, meaning that the 18 participating teams will be divided in six round-robin groups of three teams each. The winners of the two groups and the two best second places will advance to the quarterfinals. Instead of the best-of-5 series, the teams will play in two singles matches and one doubles match. The “World Group” will now take place as a single tournament.
Participating teams include: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Spain, and the United States.