Lleyton Hewitt despises the new Davis Cup format and predicts to players will skip it.

The Australian Davis Cup captain trashed the International Tennis Federation's Davis Cup reforms, which limits the traditional home-and-away ties to the opening round.

More: Murray Had Another Hip Surgery

The first edition of the new 18-team, year-end World Cup-style Davis Cup final will be staged in Madrid November 18-24th.

"I don’t agree at all with it. Having the finals in one place is ridiculous," Hewitt said days ahead of Australia hosting a Davis Cup qualifying tie against Bosnia and Herzegovina. "I personally don’t think all the top players will play but we will wait and see.

"If you look at Davis Cup the last couple of years the elite players are playing. The quarterfinal last year between Germany and Spain, Nadal was playing, and I have played in massive ties at home and away but for me the most disappointing thing is guys like these—Bolty (Alex Bolt) and Alex (de Minaur)—will never get to play a Davis Cup final in Australia and that was one of the biggest joys I had in my career."

Former world No. 1 Hewitt blasted the new format for two primary reasons:

1. It virtually eliminates Davis Cup's traditional home-and-away format.

2. It eliminates the best-of-five set match format for best-of-three-set matches.

A plan spearheaded by ITF president David Haggerty and investment group Kosmos, headed by former FC Barcelona star Gerard Pique, reforms Davis Cup creating a final that will see 18 nations compete in a week-long Davis Cup finale each November.

Incensed that a soccer star is playing such a pivotal role reforming Davis Cup, Hewitt said changes to the 119-year-old international team competition are too extreme.

"Personally I think they will have to tweak the new format," the two-time Grand Slam champion said. "They have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other and they are going to have to deal with it.

"Now we are getting run by a Spanish football player and he knows nothing about tennis and that is ridiculous. He is trying to (transform tennis into soccer). His group has bought into the ITF and they are basically running the ITF — a soccer league is the main sponsor of the Davis Cup, and that to me is mind boggling."

The 12 winners from this weekend's qualifying will join four semifinalists from the previous year and two wild cards into the November Davis Cup final. 

The Davis Cup finals will be held in a round robin format from Monday to Thursday, with the countries divided into six groups and each qualifying round consisting of three matches—two singles and one doubles—of best-of-three sets.

Champions of each group and the two best runners-up will reach the quarterfinals on Friday, while Saturday and Sunday will host the semifinals and the final.

The two worst qualified teams from the round robin stage will be relegated to the Zone Groups for the following year and the rest of the nations that did not qualify for the semifinals will have to participate in February's qualifying round the following season.

Photo credit: Tennis Australia