Europe takes the drama out of Laver Cup with dominant victory

As expected, Team Europe was simply too good.

Armed with a six-man roster made up entirely of top-10 players, the Europeans rolled to a fourth consecutive Laver Cup title on Sunday–this one by far the most dominant of this event’s four installments dating back to 2017. Already leading 11-1 through two days, Europe ended it early by reaching the necessary point total with an opening doubles win for Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev. Rublev and Zverev clinched the cup when they held off Reilly Opelka and Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 6-7(4), 10-3.

Captain Bjorn Borg’s squad also triumphed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 before the Laver Cup was cancelled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Europeans returned with an absolutely loaded roster even without the Big 3 of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer.

“For me personally as captain, [this] is the most important week in the year for me,” Borg reflected. “I think we all are very happy to defend our title. These are six guys who [are] the future of tennis. They play unbelievable tennis. Just to put together what we did as a team, it’s unbelievable.”

“We battled our best,” said four-time World captain John McEnroe. “Team Europe is a great team, no question; incredible team. They had good team spirit. We did, as well. If you get a couple of different results, we could have put more pressure on them. But we just came up short in four tiebreakers. (If) you win half those, it’s totally different story. We gave it our best, but they were just too good.”

Federer, a staple of Team Europe in previous years, was on hand to see his side dominate from start to finish. In fact, there was so little on-court drama–and so little success for the home team–that the loudest ovations inside Boston’s TD Garden on all three days came when Federer was introduced.

“For me the legacy is really important and that we remember it in tennis, because we have a really rich history,” said Federer, who helped found the Laver Cup.

“Rod Laver of course was a hero to a lot of us…. To me he was that big legend that was able to win two times the calendar Grand Slam. He was also the one that went from amateur to professional sports and that’s where the idea came in with [agent Tony Godsick] and I on a ride in Shanghai that we could do something for the legacy of the game–and incorporate all the young ones coming through and learning from the best like John and Bjorn.”

Five years later, it’s safe to say that Team Europe is a lot happier about Federer’s idea for this grand team competition than Team World.