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Shamil Tarpishchev, the President of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF), says he believes that the 2020 Federation Cup and the Davis Cup events are unlikely to be organized this year.
Shamil Tarpishchev on the 2020 Federation Cup and the Davis Cup
Speaking to TASS, Shamil Tarpishchev says, "It is in the authority of the ITF [the International Tennis Federation] to make decisions on the organization of [the Davis Cup and Fed Cup] tennis tournaments, but it says nothing at the moment.
My personal opinion is that the tournaments are highly unlikely to take place this year. But we will see how the situation develops as it is hard now to give predictions." The finals of the Federation Cup were due to be held in April in Budapest but due to the global pandemic, it has been postponed indefinitely.
The 2020 Davis Cup finals event was originally scheduled to be held in Madrid, Spain on November 23 to 29 but it remains to be seen if the event will go ahead as planned based on how the tennis calendar is structured and how the global situation unfolds.
The professional tennis circuit has been suspended since March due to the global pandemic. The men's and women's tours are set to resume in early August and the US Open is scheduled to be held in New York in late August. It remains to be seen if all the top players will travel to the United States for the tournament as many have expressed concerns about travelling to the United States due to the global pandemic.
The Fed Cup is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched in 1963 and is the world's largest annual women's international team sports competition in terms of the number of nations that compete.
The Czech Republic dominated the Fed Cup in the 2010s, having won six of the ten competitions in the decade. The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Kosmos Holding and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format.
The format of the competition changed last year to move from a home-and-away format which was spread throughout the calendar to a knock-out format held in one location (Madrid) last year. The United States has won the most number of Davis Cup titles - which is 32.