It is a pity it had to come to this, but with Davis Cup withering and rival events surfacing, the feeling was that something had to give.
On Monday, tradition did.
In what would arguably be the biggest change to the Davis Cup since its creation in 1900, the International Tennis Federation announced plans to transform the annual national-team competition through what it called a 25-year, $3 billion partnership with an international investment group headed by the Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué.
The lucrative proposal, which requires final approval in August by the I.T.F.’s general membership, would change the top level of Davis Cup into a weeklong event in November involving 18 nations, with best-of-three-set matches played at a single site.