Asked in L’Equipe about the new format of the Davis Cup when the ITF ended its partnership with Kosmos last January, Nicolas Mahut, very attached to the old format, is not at all tender towards the former president of the FFT Bernard Giudicelli.
It was not necessary to launch Nicolas Mahut on the subject. An early fan of the old format of the Davis Cup and therefore naturally fierce opponent of the new formula at a time when the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has already sounded the end of the Kosmos era (the contract with Gérard Piqué’s company was terminated last January), our best doubles player still has this change of plan in his throat, which should also continue despite the end of the partnership with Kosmos. The Angevin wants it in particular, to use his terms from a person. This person is Bernard Giudicelli, then president of the FFT, who has since passed the torch to Gilles Moretton. For Mahut, winner of the Davis Cup with the Blues in 2017 and finalist the following year, in 2018, a year before the competition tipped into a new dimension, the main culprit of everything that happened and who did, by extension, still according to the 41-year-old French player, “whom we had lost four years”, is none other than the former president of the Corsican Tennis League, parachuted into the throne of French tennis boss in February 2017 but especially vice-president of the ITF when the green light had been given to Kosmos and Pique to revolutionize everything.
Mahut is “very angry” with Haggerty
“Bernard Giudicelli obviously had a large part in this fiasco, believes Mahut in The Team, where he also regrets that the former strongman of the FFT never questioned himself. “I don’t agree with his arguments that he acted responsible for the good of tennis. No. His responsibility as president of the French Federation was to vote for the interests of the French Federation and its licensees. Similarly, Mahut, unable to swallow the pill, resents “tremendously” ITF President David Haggerty.
