CANBERRA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Davis Cup team captain and former world number one, Lleyton Hewitt, has attacked the tournament's new format as "ridiculous."
Hewitt, a two-time Grand Slam champion, on Tuesday night went after Gerard Pique, the Barcelona defender and man behind changes to the Davis Cup as founder and president of Kosmos, after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) approved Kosmos' new vision for the tournament.
"Now we're getting run by a Spanish football player, which is like me coming out and asking to change things for the Champions League; it's ridiculous," Hewitt told reporters in Adelaide.
"He knows nothing about tennis."
Under the changes, the Davis Cup finals will be re-named the World Cup of Tennis and be played by 18 countries and regions in a single week in Madrid in November. The 25-year partnership will see Kosmos invest three billion U.S. dollars in the tournament.
Each tie will consist of two singles and one doubles best-of-three sets match rather than the traditional best-of-five.
"I think having the finals in one place is ridiculous. I personally don't think all the top players will play, we will wait and see," Hewitt said.
"The two biggest points of difference were, one, the home and away aspect of it, and secondly was the best of five sets.
"If you look at the pinnacle of our sport, which are the four majors, they're best of five sets. By us going back [we] really hurt this event [given] how important it was."
The Australian captain's explosive comments came days before Australia's tie with Bosnia and Herzegovina begins in Adelaide on Friday.
There are 12 places remaining in the finals with Croatia, France, Spain, Britain, Argentina and the U.S. having already qualified.
Hewitt's tenure as Davis Cup captain has been tumultuous having engaged in a feud with Bernard Tomic, who he has said won't play Davis Cup "while I have anything to do with it."
"I'm not going to waste my time on that now," he said on Tuesday.
Earlier in January, Hewitt accused Tomic, who has a career-high ranking of number 17, of "blackmail" and of making "physical" threats against his family.
Tomic denied the claims, which came after he was knocked out of Australian Open in the first round.
"I have never threatened his family," Tomic told News Corp Australia at the time.
"Nice, Lleyton. To think how low of a person you actually [are]...[it's] why the Australian public never liked you.
"I got nothing to do with your family and I don't care what's wrong with you, you liar."
Tomic will be joined on the Davis Cup sidelines by Nick Kyrgios, the 23-year-old with a career-high ranking of number 13 who Hewitt has also ruled out picking.
"He knows why he's not, we have sat down and spoken about it," Hewitt said of the decision to exclude Kyrgios.
"He has still got to meet the standards that we expect week in and week out. He knows what he has got to do."
Australia's team will consist of world number 28 Alex De Minaur, Jordan Thompson, John Millman, Alexei Popyrin and John Peers.
