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Former player Steve Johnson slammed the Davis Cup format, which led to the Taylor Fritz-led US team being ousted by Czechia in the knockout stage, failing to reach the top eight. Fritz and Frances Tiafoe faced defeat from Jiri Lehecka and Jakub Mensik in back-to-back singles matches in the Davis Cup Qualifiers Second Round in Delray Beach.
Davis Cup lifetime record holders in doubles, Rajeev Ram & Austin Krajicek, trounced Taiwan's Ray Ho & Wu Tung-lin in 6–4, 7–6(4) to give the US team an edge, but the singles rounds losses eliminated the US team from the event. While the 32-time champions faced an unexpected fate, six former champions, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Czechia, and Argentina, will head to the Final 8.
However, several players and former players remain displeased with the format, as, unlike in previous years when ties were played in each participating country, the current centralized system has all matches from the quarterfinals onward, hosting them at the same location.
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Speaking on the same, Nothing Major podcast host Steve Johnson lambasted the tournament for the 'terrible' format it has presented.
"Ultimately it all boils down to the Davis Cup format being absolutely, incredibly bad. It is the worst format of all time. It has just lost its juice. It’s horrible. I think the Davis Cup format is horrible and this is what Davis Cup gets. he neutral site final is just brutal, it’s all brutal. I would have liked to have just done it every other year, quite frankly. This format just does not work," said Johnson after the Taylor Fritz-led US team lost.
His fellow host, Sam Querrey, also agreed and talked about how the timings confused him as he didn't know the exact days the matches were scheduled for. Jack Sock also joined forces with them to stress the same issue of the Davis Cup.
Taylor Fritz opened up about his Davis Cup singles loss due to poor health
Taylor Fritz won two tour-level titles at the Boss Open and the Lexus Eastbourne Open this year, and made semifinal and quarterfinal appearances at Wimbledon and the US Open, respectively. After his recent Davis Cup loss, Fritz expressed that he didn't feel physically fine in the past few days and was not in his best form to beat his opponent.
"I'm going to want to be, be absolutely best physical condition, and unfortunately that's just not the case. I had to take days off and obviously hurting with being sick. So I'm just not as prepared as I should be for either one of these matches, so I'm happy I was able to get the win yesterday. I fought as hard as I could today, but it's tough. You know, I think I still had chances to beat a very in-form player. He played well."
Taylor Fritz made it to the US Open finals in 2024, just one inch away from becoming the first American player to win the title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open.
