It’s time for Davis Cup again but does anyone really care? Here’s what’s wrong and a suggestion for fixing it.

Okay, So What’s Wrong With Davis Cup?

Which would you rather win: a slam title or Davis Cup? Duh.

What’s the prize money for a slam title? Oh, about $1.4 million. And a whole lot more if you win the U.S. Open title and the U.S. Open Series.

What’s the prize money for a Davis Cup title? Much less.

How many ranking points do you win for a slam title? 1000

How many ranking points do you win for a Davis Cup? 0

It’s not quite as simple as that but it’s close. Look at this week for instance. Great Britain is playing its Davis Cup tie in Argentina this coming weekend but Andy Murray won’t be there. He says his knee is injured and it could be.

But Murray is also not wild about slogging through two five set matches on clay in Argentina then flying back and, one week later, playing Rotterdam on a fast indoor surface when he has big points to defend. Murray won the San Jose Open last year and though he’s playing in Rotterdam this year instead, the points still come off that week.

By the way, the Rotterdam/San Jose switcharoo has appearance fees written all over it and that’s unfortunate. San Jose will not get its defending champion because Rotterdam may have waved a bigger pile of money at Murray than San Jose did. If San Jose waved money too, they can hardly complain, but tennis fans should complain.

Back to Davis Cup. The point is that you don’t get any ATP points for Davis Cup, it’s unlikely that Davis Cup payouts can compete with appearance fees plus tournament prize money, and you might be playing on clay in the middle of the spring indoor season which increases the chance of injury. Great Britain can’t really complain about Murray’s decision. Does Great Britain want to win a Davis Cup or do they want Murray to win a few slams including, oh yes please, a Wimbledon or two?

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal agree with Murray. They’re not playing this week and David Ferrer has pulled out too. Andy Roddick is unusual in this day and age for his steadfast commitment to Davis Cup but, then, he’s seldom in the hunt for slam titles these days.

How to Fix Davis Cup

Here are two suggestions under discussion:

1. Give players ATP ranking points for playing a Davis Cup tie.
2. Schedule a yearly two-week Davis Cup event after the U.S. Open.

Players skip Davis Cup to prepare for tournaments that give them ranking points. Giving them ATP ranking points for Davis Cup play would address that problem but how would we do it?

As Bob Larson points out, why should James Blake get ATP points for beating one of Chile’s second rate players in the meaningless fifth match of a Davis Cup tie? And what about someone like Sam Querrey? He won’t get any of those points until he overtakes Roddick and Blake to get a place on the U.S. team and that could be three or four years from now.

Nope, that suggestion won’t work so let’s go with the second suggestion. It’s time for Davis Cup organizers to step out of the past and into the present world of sports marketing. In today’s world we have the Olympics and the World Cup and the Super Bowl. We already know that the 2012 Olympics will be held in London and the 2008 Olympics haven’t even started yet.

We don’t know where the Davis Cup final will be until the semifinals are complete because the final is held in the home country of one of the participating teams. That means we had about one month’s notice for the 2007 final in Portland, Oregon.

I love Portland, Oregon. I just spent 10 days there hanging out at such wonderful restaurants as Paleys where I ate an appetizer of escargots with bone marrow and some basil garlic bread soaked in bordelaise sauce. No lie. But you can’t build up excitement for an event with one month’s notice.

Create a yearly two-week event and change the surface from year to year. Solicit bids for the event from countries around the world and give them time to promote it. Davis Cup will change fundamentally because the home country won’t be able to choose its favorite surface – or its opponent’s most hated surface – and teams won’t be cheered on by their home crowd.

But it wouldn’t be the first fundamental change. Until 1981, Davis Cup didn’t give out prize money. Prize money was a break from Davis Cup’s amateur past and now it’s time for another.

What do you think? Would Davis Cup gain in prestige or would it become just another tournament?

Andy Murray and his crew play tennis footy at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, England.

Jennifer Capriati fights off a match point in the second set tiebreaker against Martina Hingis before going on to win the 2002 Australian Open title.

Joachim Johansson announced his retirement over the weekend due to recurring shoulder problems. He is 25 years old. Is this a sign that more careers are being cut short by injuries now that we have power rackets and ball-grabbing strings?

By ball-grabbing strings I mean those Luxilon strings that enable a player to rear back and hit the ball as hard as humanly possible yet keep it in the court with the modern topspin stroke. Look at Roger Federer’s forehand. He hits the ball with a closed racket and his swing barely gets as high as his shoulder yet he catapults the ball over 100mph (161kmh) and still keeps it in the court.

I guess we should start by looking at the pre-power era players. Roscoe Tanner retired in 1985 after his elbow got so bad he couldn’t unload that fearsome serve of his. He wasn’t going to win a whole lot of matches without that serve. It turns out that Tanner had bone chips floating around his elbow and this was before sports medicine invented arthroscopic surgery.

John McEnroe, on the other hand, is still a top player on the senior circuit and he’s now 48 years old. McEnroe never swung hard at the ball whereas I can’t remember anyone who swings as hard as Rafael Nadal.

Nadal is only 21 years old yet he already has chronic problems with his feet and his knees – one injury no doubt leading to the other. Nadal winds up with his extreme Western grip and Popeye biceps and puts as much topspin on the ball as any human that ever lived. He also sets up far behind the baseline and runs many more miles than most tennis players because he seldom fails to get to the final of a clay court event. He had 81 straight wins on clay before Federer beat him in Hamburg last year. That’s a lot of wear and tear.

Bjorn Borg had an unorthodox stroke too, in fact, he probably ushered in the era of extreme topspin and he won seven straight French Opens on clay. But injury didn’t drive him from the game – it didn’t have a chance – burnout did. After losing the 1981 U.S. Open final to John McEnroe, he walked off the court and went straight to his courtesy car. He didn’t even stay for the award ceremony.

That’s a lot longer than Kim Clijsters lasted. She left the game last year at age 23 to have a family. Remember, though, that Clijsters turned pro when she was 14 years old.

So did Jennifer Capriati who was hit with both burnout and injury. She took time off from tennis when she was 17 years old and suffered through some teenage angst. There was some drug use and typical teenage acting out. She resumed her career and won three slams but she’s another sledgehammer player with a big serve and a shoulder injury finally seems to have ended her career for good.

Okay, so burnout and injury are nothing new, but there is a theme here. If you’re a power player who depends on slamming the ball as hard as you can from the baseline, you’re going to wear yourself out. If you’re a graceful mover who can take the game to your opponent and finish points off early, you should have a long and relatively injury free career.

If the theory holds, what are my career longevity predictions for current players?

Maria Sharapova is a big server and big hitter who doesn’t move that well and hates coming to the net. She’s already had shoulder problems and could have more. On the other hand, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga should do well because, though he’s a big server and a big hitter, he can finish points off at the net and that shortens points and preserves his body.

Finesse players should live long and prosper too, though they may not win many tournaments. Fabrice Santoro has the record for number of grand slam appearances. His forehand is a two-handed slice for heavens sake. Santoro will still be playing senior tennis when he’s 60 years old and he’ll still be driving Federer crazy should Federer choose to play senior tennis.

Of course, the theory doesn’t always work. Andy Murray is a walking injury and his game is all about finesse. Anna Chakvetadze is most often compared to Martina Hingis but Hingis had to retire for three years with foot problems. And then there is unforeseeable disaster. Chakvetadze is still recovering from the shock of being robbed at gunpoint at her home in Moscow in late December. Her father was beaten by one of the robbers.

Meanwhile, life on the professional tennis tour goes on so I might as well give you today’s injury report:

Serena Williams has pulled out of this week’s indoor Paris event saying that she needs surgery. For what? We have no idea. Serena controls her channel of information, not the WTA. John Isner has a stress fracture and will be gone for as long as it takes to heal. See what I mean about power players with big serves?

What are your predictions for the career longevity of current players?

American Jesse Witten had match point on Bruno Echagaray’s serve in a challenger event in Dallas, Texas, last week when a lineswoman called a foot fault on Echagaray’s second serve. Witten is an American player and Echagaray is from Mexico.

The score was 6-5 in the third set tiebreaker when the call was made. Echagaray lost his temper as you’ll see. Even the announcer was stunned. On the one hand, if you see an infraction you call it. On the other hand, when was the last time a foot fault cost someone a match?

What do you think?