Australian Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter has hosted a meeting of World Group captains in France in a bid to force organisers to overhaul the competition.

The meeting was held inside the grounds of Roland Garros on Tuesday despite the ITF attempting to stop it happening, British newspaper The Times reports.

Rafter reportedly flew to Paris at his own expense to host the talks which included United States captain Jim Courier and Spain’s Alex Corretja.

“Rafter is leading a rally to change the (Davis Cup) competition before it becomes an anachronistic sideshow,” The Times reported on Wednesday.

“The ITF leant on Stephen Healy, the president of Tennis Australia, hoping that he might dissuade Rafter from taking such a defining stance but failed.”

One unnamed World Group captain told the newspaper that while nobody wanted to see the Davis Cup wound up “every one of us expressed a desire to see it change”.

The competition is increasingly less of a priority for the world’s top players.

Australia must beat Poland away from home in September to return to the World Group for the first time since 2007.