The Laver Cup is an international indoor

hard court A hardcourt (or hard court) is a surface or floor on which a sport is played, most usually in reference to tennis courts. It is typically made of rigid materials such as asphalt or concrete, and covered with acrylic resins to seal the surface an ...

men's

team tennis Team tennis is a tennis tournament which consist of matches between different groups of players each competing to win the tournament for their team. The format is usually an altered version of the professionally played World TeamTennis format; con ...

tournament between

Team Europe Team Europe may refer to a number of sports team using the designate to represent a unified team of European countries in sporting competitions. Whilst neither the European Union nor the Council of Europe are countries themselves, European teams ...

and

Team World World Team or Team World is a designation for a sports team in many competitions. It is usually equivalent to a "rest of the world" team, which is pitted against a particular territory. Competitions featuring a world team :''Note that in the ...

, the latter of which is composed of players from all other continents except Europe. Usually held annually since 2017, the tournament is intended to be the

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...

of the tennis world. It normally takes place two weeks after the US Open, with the location rotating between various host cities (that usually do not have an

ATP Tour The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organ ...

event); alternating yearly between European cities and cities in the rest of the world. In addition to the guaranteed participation fees which are based upon the players'

ATP rankings The Pepperstone ATP rankings are the merit-based method used by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for determining the qualification for entry as well as the seeding of players in all singles and doubles tournaments. The first rankings ...

, each member of the winning team gets $250,000 in prize money, but the tournament itself does not count towards the players' point totals in the

for that year. In May 2019, the Laver Cup became an officially sanctioned ATP Tour event. Matches during the Laver Cup tournament differ from conventional 3-set matches played on the ATP Tour; in the event when the match is tied at one set all, a 10-point “match tiebreak” is played instead of a deciding final set (this is to ensure that all matches conclude within a reasonable timeframe of approximately 2 hours, whilst enabling 4 matches to be completed within a match day – that begins either at 1 pm local time for Days 1 & 2, or at 12 noon local time for the final Day 3 of the tournament). In addition, unlike conventional ATP tour matches, coaching of match participants is commonly applied courtside by teammates and team captains.

Format

The competition pits six top European players against six of their counterparts from the rest of the world. Each team is led by a team captain, who is a tennis legend. Three of the six players qualify based on their ATP singles ranking as of the Monday following the

French Open The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ve ...

in June. Three are "captain's picks", announced by the start of the US Open, in August. There are 12 matches played over three days (nine singles and three doubles). Each match victory on day 1 is worth one point, on day 2 two points, and on day 3 three points. The first team to claim 13 points wins the tournament. Therefore, the winning team can only be decided on day 3. No player plays singles more than twice. At least four of the six team members take part in doubles. All matches start as two sets, a 10-point “match tiebreak” is played if the match is level at one set all. In the event both teams are tied at 12 points each, a fifth match known as “The Decider” is played on day 3, whereby one set is played as a regular set with ad scoring and a tiebreak. In the event that only one match is required on Sunday (last previous occurrence was at the 2021 Laver Cup), an exhibition match is played following the trophy ceremony.

Tournament schedule

History

The tournament is named after Australian

Rod Laver Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was the world number 1 ranked professional in some sources in 1964, in all sources from 1965 to 1969 and in some sources in 1970, spanning four years befor ...

, a tennis player widely regarded as one of the greatest in the history of the sport (He won all four major titles in the same calendar year, winning the Grand Slam twice in singles, in 1962 and 1969; the latter remains the only time a man has done so in the Open Era.)

Roger Federer Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-e ...

's management company, TEAM8, Brazilian businessman and former

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organi ...

player Jorge Paulo Lemann, and Tennis Australia partnered to create the Laver Cup.

was inspired to create a tennis team tournament based on the biennial

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament, which features the best golfers from the United States playing against the best golfers from Europe. However, Laver Cup differs as it is purely an invitational event based on past historical performances; selection of (and the playing agreement with) the tournament participants are not automatically based from the highest ranked players of the recent ATP Tour world rankings. Former

rivals A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant ...

Björn Borg Björn Rune Borg (; born 6 June 1956) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. Between 1974 and 1981, he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles with six at the French Open and five consecutively at ...

of Sweden (Team Europe) and

John McEnroe John Patrick McEnroe Jr. (born February 16, 1959) is an American former professional tennis player. He was known for his shot-making and volleying skills, his rivalries with Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors, and his confrontational on-court beh ...

of the United States (Team World) were announced to serve as captains for at least the first three editions. After the 2019 edition, they announced that they will reprise their roles as team captains for a fourth straight edition.

2017: Inaugural edition

The first edition was held in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

from 22 to 24 September 2017, at the

O2 Arena O2 Arena may refer to: *The O2 Arena (London) *O2 Arena (Prague) *The 3Arena The 3Arena (originally The O2) is an indoor amphitheatre located at North Wall Quay in the Dublin Docklands in Dublin, Ireland. The venue opened as The O2 on 16 Decemb ...

. Team Europe defeated Team World 15–9. *

2018

The second edition was held in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

from 21 to 23 September 2018, at the

United Center United Center is an indoor arena on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is home to the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). It is name ...

. Team Europe defeated Team World 13–8. *

2019

The third edition was held in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

from 20 to 22 September 2019, at the Palexpo. Team Europe defeated Team World 13−11. *

2021

The fourth edition was held in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

from 24 to 26 September 2021, at the

TD Garden TD Garden is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after its sponsor, TD Bank, a subsidiary of the Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Ontario. It opened in 1995 as a replacement for the original Boston Garden and has bee ...

. It was originally scheduled for September 2020, but was postponed because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

to avoid overlapping with the 2020 French Open, which was also rescheduled. Team Europe defeated Team World 14−1. *

2022

The fifth edition was held in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

from 23 to 25 September 2022, at

the O2 Arena The O2 Arena, commonly known as the O2 (stylised as The O2 arena), is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the centre of the O2 entertainment complex on the Greenwich Peninsula in southeast London. It opened in its present form in 2007. It has the ...

. This tournament marked the retirement of

. Team World defeated Team Europe for the first time by a margin of 13−8. * * *

Records and statistics

Tournament editions

Team statistics

Players

Records

Statistics

Participating nations

References

External links

Official website
{{Tennis box ATP Tour Men's tennis tournaments Hard court tennis tournaments Recurring sporting events established in 2017 Indoor tennis tournaments