Croatia Crowned 2018 Davis Cup Champions
In what was a rematch of 2018’s football World Cup final, Croatia got their revenge on France as they defeated them 3-1 in this year’s Davis Cup final. After a disastrous first day, where they lost both singles rubbers, France managed to keep themselves in contention when Herbert and Mahut were victorious in Day 2’s doubles rubber. However once again the French failed to back it up in the singles, as Croatia’s talisman Marin Cilic beat Lucas Pouille 7-6 6-3 6-3 to win the Davis Cup for Croatia for the first time since 2005.
This was a final shrouded in controversy, because of the proposed changes to the Davis Cup format that were passed recently by the ITF. The Davis Cup will now be a wider team competition taking place at the end of the season, with several rounds of qualifying taking place earlier in the year. This also comes after the introduction of the ATP team cup, a similarly formatted competition taking place in January 2020, an event which would be just 6 weeks after the Davis Cup, making the already difficult tennis schedule even more arduous. Many players have come out against the changes, such as former champion Tomas Berdych, and Alexander Zverev has expressed his reluctancy to take part. France captain Yannick Noah told ITF president David Haggerty that he was ‘disgusted’ by the change in format.