History of the Davis Cup

The Davis Cup is an International team tennis tournament played every year and this year’s Davis Cup was the 110^th anniversary of the start and the 99^th time a champion has been crowned.  The idea came about when four members of the Harvard Tennis team decided to challenge the British in a competition, with one of the Harvard players being Dwight F. Davis whom the cup would later be named after.  He created the tournament format and purchased a trophy with his own money.  Harvard, and thus the United States, ended up winning the first match in 1900 and the rematch in 1902 and by 1905, four more countries were competing.  The Davis Cup had only ever been won by four countries (the United States, Great Britain/British Isles, France, and Australia/Australasia [which was a combination of Australia and New Zealand]) until 1974, when it was awarded to South Africa when India refused to play them in the final due to the South African apartheid.  As far as expansion from the original two starters of the tournament, at the 100^th anniversary, there were 129 nations that competed to try to claim the Davis Cup.  The top 16 teams in the world compete in the yearly tournament and countries that do not compete in the main tournament compete in a regional zone tournament, in which losers of the main tournament face winners of the regional tournaments to decide who would compete in the following year’s tournament.  The top finishers of the Davis Cup include the United States, who has won or finished as a runner-up in 61 of the 99 tournaments, Australia who has finished in the top two 47 times, and Great Britain who has finished first or second 17 times.