Davis Cup Finals: Great Britain & Serbia given wildcards for 2022 event

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Dan Evans at Davis CupGreat Britain reached the knockout stage of this year's Davis Cup Finals

Great Britain and Serbia have been awarded wildcards into next year's Davis Cup Finals.

It means neither team will be involved in the qualifying round in March.

Serbia, featuring world number one Novak Djokovic, lost to Croatia in the semi-finals this year, while GB were beaten by Germany in the last eight.

"Securing the number one in the world in our Finals, sporting wise, is the right call," Enric Rojas, CEO of Kosmos Tennis, told BBC Sport.

"Novak and the Serbian team were extremely committed this year.

"It was a very, very tough decision to decide the second wildcard. Wildcards are for securing the best potential teams with some kind of threat of not qualifying, and we thought that having GB secured would be the right decision."

Both countries have benefitted from wildcards before: Serbia this year, and Leon's Smith team before the Finals in 2019.

Next year's Finals will be contested by 16 teams over 12 days, and are very likely to conclude in Abu Dhabi.

A five-year deal with the Middle Eastern state has been proposed by Kosmos, who are the investment partners of the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Abu Dhabi will be officially confirmed once the ITF Board has given its full approval.

This year's final between the Russian Tennis Federation and Croatia is due to begin in Madrid at 15:00 GMT on Sunday.

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