Italy may be the only major tennis-playing nation that does not want one unified Tennis World Cup , because if ever such a tournament came into being it would deny them the chance to win the two existing, gender-specific Tennis World Cups – namely, the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup – every year for the foreseeable future.

That is a realistic prospect after Jasmine Paolini et al retained the Billie Jean King Cup in Shenzhen, which means that Italy have now retained both the Davis Cup and the BJK Cup, winning the last four editions of these tournaments, and have a strong chance of making it a hat-trick of Davis Cup wins on home soil in Bologna this November.

But how did this happen? How did Italy, which prior to 2023 had won only four BJK Cups (or Fed Cups as they were originall

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