Home

Europe maintain Laver Cup unbeaten record

AAPAAP
Rod Laver presents the trophy named after him to Europe's victorious captain Bjorn Borg in Boston.
Camera IconRod Laver presents the trophy named after him to Europe's victorious captain Bjorn Borg in Boston. Credit: AP

Even without any of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic on their roster, Team Europe have clinched their fourth consecutive Laver Cup victory by powering 14-1 ahead against Team World.

It meant the Bjorn Borg-captained Europe have maintained their unbeaten record in the competition against the John McEnroe-led team, featuring Australian regular Nick Kyrgios, in Boston.

Leading 11-1 overnight in the Ryder Cup-style event, Europe needed just one win from the four matches scheduled on Sunday to make it four straight titles.

And the doubles pairing of Germany's Alexander Zverev and Russian Andrey Rublev obliged with a 6-2 6-7 (4-7) 10-3 win against American Reilly Opelka and Canadian Denis Shapovalov.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

The previous three editions had gone down to the wire, despite the disparity in rankings between the two sides, but this time Europe triumphed with room to spare as the great Rod Laver presented the trophy to Borg.

"At the end of the day, the score says that it was 14-1, but it could have gone both ways a lot of the time," Zverev said in an on-court interview.

The Game AFL 2024

"We (did) a lot of hard work for this victory throughout the whole week. The group of this team has been absolutely amazing. I think a lot of us came a lot closer together and to be honest I can't wait for London next year."

There were still three singles matches remaining, but Team Europe had already eclipsed the 13 points needed to win the Cup.

Match victories were worth one point on Friday, two points on Saturday and three points on Sunday.

Team Europe won eight of the first nine matches in the three-day event, which was postponed in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Team Europe won the first three Laver Cups, too, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, each time with Federer and either Nadal or Djokovic participating.

Zverev and Rublev were joined on Team Europe this time by US Open champion Daniil Medvedev, French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas, Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini and Casper Ruud. All six are ranked in the top 10.

Team World featured Felix Auger-Aliassime, Diego Schwartzman, John Isner and Kyrgios.

Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.

Sign up for our emails