The Laver Cup wants to be the Ryder Cup of tennis. Do its stars need that pressure?

BERLIN — “Vamoooooos,” a roar, and the ball skied in celebration.

Carlos Alcaraz did what he normally does when he wins a tennis match — except this time he was dressed all in blue, playing on a black court, and about to be mobbed by Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Daniil Medvedev, men whose dreams of Grand Slam titles he has spent most of his career dashing.

In dismantling U.S. Open finalist Taylor Fritz, 6-2, 7-5, Alcaraz clinched the 2024 Laver Cup for Team Europe, securing a 13-11 victory over Team World here in the German capital.

Not 36 hours earlier, he used a press conference at the same event to express fears about there being too much tennis, having suffered a shock defeat to Botic van de Zandschulp in the third round of the U.S. Open, in what was the Spaniard’s 50th singles match of 2024, in late August.

“Probably, they are going to kill us in some way,” he said.

“Sometimes, you don’t want to go to a tournament,” he added.

“Sometimes, I don’t feel motivated at all. As I’ve said many, many times, I play my best tennis when I smile and enjoy it on court. That’s the best option,” he continued.

In Berlin, he was feeling himself, evidently liberated by the atmosphere, the support of being part of a team — and freedom from the stresses of tennis that truly counts for something, whether it’s a major title, an Olympic medal, or the ranking points that move players up and down the sport.

But the Laver Cup has designs on being more than this, aiming to emulate the history and prestige of golf’s Ryder Cup, whose 90-year history far outstrips that of an event founded in 2017, and thus far is best known for being the stage on which co-founder Roger Federer orchestrated his exit from the sport he defined.

The event wants prestige, but players love its freedom. Seven years after its inception, the Laver Cup finds itself at an inflection point.

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When the Laver Cup arrives in San Francisco next September for its 2025 edition, the two team captains — John McEnroe (World) and Bjorn Borg (Europe) — will have been replaced by Andre Agassi and Yannick Noah. Rafael Nadal is expected to have followed the competition’s co-founder Federer into retirement. An event initially so defined by star power will have to search for new shine.

Its founders are bullish about the competition’s place in tennis. Tony Godsick is Federer’s long-term agent and fellow co-founder of Team8, the sports and entertainment company that oversaw the foundation of the event.

“We’ll never get rid of that gap,” Godsick says of organisers’ designs on matching the Ryder Cup, as he takes The Athletic on a tour of Berlin’s Uber Arena. “We invest in the brand for the players, for the sponsors, for the fans, for the media.”

Godsick also offered his own opinion on its place in the tennis calendar at a press conference on Friday: “There could be too many other tennis events, per se, but this one is working. We have sold-out crowds. Every player loves to play. We have the biggest captains, the best sponsors. Everything is working.

“So the question is: Is there too much Laver Cup? No. I think there is not enough Laver Cup, probably.”

Everything about the competition is bombastic, which at times can jar a little. At one point at the launch event on Thursday night, guests were told the Laver Cup is “one of the most popular sporting events in the world”. Borg, winner of 11 Grand Slam titles, describes it as “the best event”.

Bjorn Borg will relinquish his captaincy of Team Europe to Yannick Noah. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images for Laver Cup)

In its courtship of stars and pitting of a selection of the world’s top players against each other, it largely pulls off its dance between a glitzy tennis pageant and a serious competition tied to the most important competitions in the sport.

The black court and vibrant red and blue team colours help give it a distinct feel, and the luxury sponsors and slick, high-end production values are very much in line with co-founder Federer’s image. He was in Berlin for the event and his presence and aura can be felt everywhere — but the competition can no longer rely on it for the actual playing of tennis.

Players who are normally rivals get to hang out properly and actually get to know each other a bit better away from the pressure of tour life. They clearly enjoy the atmosphere a lot, learning from each other and their distinguished team captains, and are well looked after. Players are encouraged to bring their families along and Federer insists that everything is done to ensure their needs are met. Stringers, physios, hotels — everything has to be delivered to his exacting standards. The players are given appearance fees, and members of the winning team receive $250,000 (£187,000) each.

This helps with getting the top three players from both geographical groups, who are directly invited (the tournament then works down the list if players ranked higher say no) with three more team members selected as “captain’s picks”. In this year’s case, six of the world’s top 10 and nine of the world’s top 20 made the trip. One of those was debutant Alcaraz, who McEnroe points to as inheriting the star power of Federer and Nadal (the latter was down to play, before pulling out with injury).

The system thereby creates singles matchups that could be pulled from the latter stages of Grand Slam tournaments — Medvedev against Frances Tiafoe, Alcaraz against Ben Shelton, Zverev against Fritz — with none of the pressure such meetings carry.

Not that the event sees it that way.

Frances Tiafoe claimed victory over Daniil Medvedev in a match tiebreak. (Francisco Macia / Quality Sport Images via Getty Images)

“We do not hear that there is less pressure,” said chief executive Steve Zacks earlier this week. “It’s a different kind of pressure. But they take it very seriously. And they feel like they’ve got people supporting them.”

“The peer pressure, having great players on each team, having the legends of the game as your coaches … You’re going to try hard, period,” Godsick told reporters.

The players competing in the Laver Cup definitely care. Of course they do — they are professional athletes and competitive beasts; put them all together in a game of minigolf and they’d take it extremely seriously. But the event’s lack of accumulated pressure from the rest of the tennis calendar feels germane in the context of Alcaraz’s comments.

Perhaps being not quite so serious is no bad thing.

The players involved say that the change in atmosphere is marked.

“The players talk in a more friendly way,” said Team Europe’s Casper Ruud in an interview with The Athletic. “Here, you can actually get to know your competitors. Daniil (Medvedev) is a father and we can talk about his family, his daughter, how it is to be a father. Sometimes I forget that athletes we’re just normal people as well.”

Rivals become team-mates, spending proper time with their colleagues rather than rolling on to yet another tournament as a sole trader in search of ranking points.

That extends to the on-court format, with the other players sitting courtside for matches and able to offer advice between points and energy during them. It’s fascinating seeing their interactions in a sport that so often isolates them (and in the social media age, makes for compelling content).

Dimitrov was especially active on Team Europe, even offering tips on where to serve on certain points. His suggestion to Medvedev for the first point of the super tiebreak against Tiafoe paid off, with the Russian listening and winning the point. After that match, he and Medvedev stayed on court, talking tactics. After one high-octane point against Tabilo, Dimitrov high-fived his teammates, the big screen caught a glimpse of Federer smiling, and the whole place went wild. Alcaraz and Tiafoe enjoyed working the crowd even more than usual.

It’s hard to imagine that freedom under the pressure of a Grand Slam match — or even something on a par with the Ryder Cup.

For Fritz, fresh from his first U.S. Open final, it was a relief not to go straight back into the grind of tour-level competition.

“It would be easy to have almost an emotional comedown — especially as an American,” he said. “You don’t get that here. You’ve got the team to pump you up.”

His compatriot and team-mate Shelton, who has spoken in the past about his love of the college tennis environment in the United States that formed him as a player, sees the event as a welcome throwback.

Ben Shelton is particularly fond of the on-court energy for its ties to the college tennis atmosphere in which he developed. (Francisco Macia / Quality Sport Images via Getty Images)

“I think a lot of the banter and the things that we enjoy in the locker room and cheering for our teammates on the court are similar to college,” he said. “I think that you always play better when you’re playing for something bigger than yourself.”

At this summer’s Olympics in Paris, Alcaraz and women’s world No 1 Iga Swiatek, did not feel this way. Both broke down in tears after defeats — Swiatek in the semifinals against Zheng Qinwen and Alcaraz in the gold medal match against Novak Djokovic — and referred to the pressure of playing for something bigger than themselves, meaning their country.

How much that pressure would grow if the Laver Cup were to gain more of the sporting prestige it wants is another tricky dance to negotiate.

The Davis Cup — the men’s team tennis event that currently has the most prestige — is in a complicated place of its own, with changes to its format and location lessening the appeal. The women’s equivalent, the Billie Jean King Cup, also loses top players because of its proximity to the season-ending WTA Finals. Tsitsipas said he appreciates the consistency of the Laver Cup in this regard — the money likely helps, too.

These advantages don’t convince everyone — the world No 1, Jannik Sinner, has never played in the annual event, and Djokovic has appeared just twice.

The Laver Cup’s future will rest on how it negotiates its desire to be prestigious while maintaining the difference and freedom that the players on whose star power it relies clearly relish.

At the pre-event press conference, the players enjoyed having a laugh with one another, teasing the 21-year-old Alcaraz about how green he is and Dimitrov’s recent striptease with Djokovic in a charity match. For Team World, Tiafoe was particularly in his element.

“It suits me a lot, suits my personality. Get to relax a bit. It definitely helps,” he said in an interview ahead of the event.

Fritz and Zverev were asked at the pre-tournament press conference if they were, as the senior players, the de facto team leaders. Both instantly demurred and said the team captains were in charge — in part it seemed because they were quite enjoying a week where it wasn’t them having to make decisions.

The fans enjoy it too. With the 17,000-capacity Uber Arena either sold out or close to for the five sessions, it was the highest-grossing event at the venue since it opened in 2008. The fan area outside was always busy and the dedicated practice court was packed whenever the bigger names, such as Alcaraz, used it.

The jumbo tennis balls that have become a feature of crowds were out in force for the players. (Ronny Hartmann / AFP via Getty Images)

The challenge, as the Davis Cup has found out, is ensuring that, as well as those attending, the event appeals to a sizeable proportion of the wider tennis, and broader sporting, public.

The event is looking at bringing in younger players, and Godsick mentioned the possibility of an NCAA Laver Cup, which would pit the best European college players against their best counterparts from the rest of the world. Everywhere, including Saudi Arabia, is in consideration for hosting future editions, but there are no immediate plans to create a joint men’s and women’s event, with the feeling that the Hopman Cup has cornered that part of the market for now.

Even though the Laver Cup is starting to make memories — Nadal and Federer holding hands during the latter’s farewell in 2022, the pair coming back onto the court with Zverev and giving him a sweary pep talk in 2019, Kyle Edmund absolutely losing his mind in the dressing room a year earlier and chest-bumping everyone in sight — there is no shortcut to history and prestige.

Kyle Edmund going wild in laver cup locker room. pic.twitter.com/P3YmGKnhG2

— Tennis Reaction vids (@DominicMEME) March 10, 2024

Only through time, doing it year-in and year-out, will the Laver Cup be able to acquire the status it clearly wants, even if the tournament’s current calling card is freedom from the sameness and existential angst of the tennis tours.

The next seven years will be interesting.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Pietersen)