World’s Best Wow Tennis Fans At Laver Cup
The Laver Cup once again proved to be an extremely successful event this year, with the tournament once again going down to a final match to decide the winner. In the end a much stronger (on paper at least) Team Europe proved too difficult a task for a Team World to surmount, despite valiant efforts from the likes of Nick Kyrgios, Jack Sock and John Isner.
However, the final match was to be played by Raonic and Zverev, the German World Number 6 being picked to play the decider having won Europe the event last year in the final match. This match followed Roger Federer edging past an inspired John Isner to keep the tie alive after a brilliant streak by Team World which saw them win 3 matches back to back. Zverev started strongly and got the solitary break in set 1, but Raonic, who has been lacking in matches recently due to injuries, kicked into gear to break Zverev in the 6th game of set number 2. Raonic would go on to take the set and force a deciding tiebreak, but failed to recover from as slow start, allowing Zverev to seal victory for Team Europe.
“It was an unbelievable weekend. Those guys [Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal] were screaming at me in the locker room before the Match Tie-break, saying this is how I could turn my season around. Without all of these guys on the bench, I couldn’t have done it,” Zverev said. “This is very special, especially playing in front of those guys and having them trust me to play the last match.”
Europe have now won all 3 editions of the Laver Cup, mainly because of their ability to get the very best players to compete. Federer and Nadal have appeared every year whereas Team World haven’t been able to use the likes of Del Potro, Nishikori or Schwartzman because of injury or unavailability. Despite this, the competition remains competitive and extremely exciting and next year’s edition in Boston will be eagerly awaited by tennis fans.
Written by Emre Saridogan