Tennis doesn’t have a marquee weekend like the NBA all-star game or an NFL pro-bowl; the closest thing is the Davis Cup – although that faces plenty of problems. With the Laver Cup, we might finally be in luck. Here we’ve got the greatest players in the world divided into teams, coached by the previous generation’s greatest players and playing in the honour of the first truly great player — how can it not be great?
Let’s look at the 11 most exciting things at the Laver Cup.
Related: Federer’s looking to build team spirit ahead of the Laver Cup
- Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal playing doubles. Because obviously.
- Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal playing doubles in a final overtime doubles match. According to lavercup.com, if the competition is tied after 12 matches each captain will pick two players to play off in a deciding doubles match. If you asked me if I’d prefer to see Roger and Rafa compete in the final of one more Grand Slam or watch this I’d pick the former but it would make me hesitate for 1.7 seconds.
- 58-year-old John McEnroe blowing a gasket. I say this as someone who proudly has racquet smashing inside their top 5 favourite things about tennis. If you don’t want to see one more outburst from the great outburster that’s fine but you’re just lying to yourself.
- The black court. Because why can’t a tennis court look sexy?
- Frances Tiafoe and Denis Shapovalov with something to prove. Don’t think these two aren’t taking notice when you second guess why they’re in an event with the greatest players of all time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up as MVPs.
- Watching Roger Federer and Bjorn Borg be cool and spending an ordinate amount of time trying to decide who of them is cooler.
- The team dynamics. For Team Europe I’ve got Roger Federer as George Clooney, Nadal as Pitt, Cilic as Damon, Zverev and Thiem as Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, Tomas Berdych as Julia Roberts and Borg as Elliot Gould. What about Team World?
- Tomas Berdych the hometown hero. The criminally underrated Czech who, if he were born ten years earlier and didn’t have to play the big four in the semifinal of every single Grand Slam and would probably have two or three majors to his name, finally gets to be the crowd favourite. Yay.
- The bench. Tennis has always had great on-court player reactions but we rarely get any memeable content from the stands. Instead of half asleep tennis coaches softly clapping after every point we’ll get the game’s best cheering on teammates with their own personal touch. Can’t wait.
- The Americans. Jack Sock, Sam Querrey and John Isner have all won multiple major titles and Olympic gold medals in doubles. Given doubles is pretty important in this format, Team World could have quite the X-factor.
- Nick Kyrgios. Because anything with NK Rising is always gonna be good.
The Laver Cup starts this Friday, September 22 in Prague. For a full rundown on how it works or where it will be broadcast go to lavercup.com.
