After the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year - the US Open has finished in early September tennis fans have a rather special tournament to look forward to that has been going for only 3 years - The Laver Cup. Named after the great Australian tennis legend Rod Laver the Laver Cup hosts some of the best names in Mens tennis as fans get to see a rare sight of players like Federer and Nadal combine for doubles tennis.
The Laver Cup was formed by a series of companies two years ago including Roger Federer's company Team8 and Tennis Australia. The first two Laver Cups in 2017 and 18 were huge successes with last year seeing Chicago host two teams of stars from Europe and the Rest of the World.
The format is always the same, players who are involved are put into one of two teams, if your a European then that's Team Europe, if you were born outside Europe then you would be in Team World. Both teams duelling out over 3 days with a whole host of single and doubles matches. Roger Federer has taken part in both tournaments and will also be playing this year where he will partner with Rafa Nadal for the second time in this event (they partners in 2017 for the opening Laver Cup event too). That is bad news for Team World! Last year Federer partnered with Djokovic so Team World have never had it easy. Indeed they lost the event 13 matches to 8 in Chicago 2018.
Still there were some fantastic matches to watch and the tennis remained competitive until the very end. You can check the highlights out below:
My favourite match was probably watching Federer and Djokovic partner on a doubles court to face experienced doubles player Jack Sock and Kevin Anderson. That match went down to the wire, where Sock and Anderson had 3 match points for Team World and managed to hold their nerve to show that doubles is a totally different game to singles and two of the best singles players in the world don't necessarily make the best doubles partnership. You can check out highlights below:
Here are the current confirmed players in both teams:
Team Europe:
- Roger Federer
- Rafa Nadal
- Dominic Thiem
- Alexander Zverev
- Fabio Fognini
Team World
- Kevin Anderson
- John Isner
- Milos Ranoic
- Denis Sharpovalov
There are two more players left to confirm on both teams.
What's really troubling is the complete lack of balance in the teams. Team World whilst having a lot of big servers who will be tough to break in singles and doubles still looks rather weak compared to Team Europe. I mean having two of the three best players in the world on your team already tips the balance way in Team Europe's favour.
Also not having Jack Sock thus far confirmed for Team World is a major weakness because he's a versatile player who has exceptional double skills and isn't too bad at singles either. He would have been a big asset to have to potentially win some of the doubles matches for TW.
I'll be keeping you posted on the Laver Cup more as the event draws nearer. This year it's being held in Federer's home county - Switzerland. One can only hope the last two players for Team World include more nimble and adaptable players because having three big servers is more than enough.