{"id":159324,"date":"2025-09-21T18:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T18:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159324\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T18:12:20","slug":"for-three-days-tennis-forgot-it-hates-team-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159324\/","title":{"rendered":"For three days, tennis forgot it hates team sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend\u2019s Laver Cup<\/a> in San Francisco was just plain fun. And that\u2019s not something tennis fans get to say very often about team competition. Usually, tennis as a \u201cteam sport\u201d is a disaster. Players are too individual, too locked into their own routines, too much like lone wolves who\u2019ve been raised to fight for every inch of space on their own. Putting them in matching tracksuits and calling them teammates usually feels about as natural as trying to turn chess into a relay race. But this weekend felt different\u2014it was, as the title says, three days where tennis forgot it hates team sports.Team World sweeping Saturday to take a 9\u20133 lead<\/a> into today\u2019s final day was great theater, but the scoreline wasn\u2019t the whole story. It was the vibe. Watching Alex de Minaur<\/a> fight through rallies while Andre Agassi and Patrick Rafter coached from the bench was compelling in a way tennis rarely manages. Even Reilly Opelka<\/a>, often more tower than talker, came off like a guy that maybe you (still not me) could actually imagine hanging out with. That alone was worth the price of admission.<\/p>\n

Agassi was the heartbeat of it all. He wasn\u2019t some ceremonial figurehead in a polo shirt, but an actual coach\u2014leaning in, talking through strategy, and lifting his players up. The chemistry between him and de Minaur was so natural it made you wonder if it could last beyond this weekend. Could Agassi one day help him to a Slam? After watching them together, it didn\u2019t feel like a stretch.<\/p>\n

San Francisco made the perfect backdrop. The dark court and dramatic lighting gave the matches an old-school prizefight feel. On TV it looked sharp and stylish, like theater with forehands. And because the broadcast let us in on the little moments\u2014bench chatter, tactical whispers, quick smiles\u2014it felt personal. You weren\u2019t just watching a match; you were part of the drama.<\/p>\n

Format deserves credit in ‘pure simple fun’<\/p>\n

The format itself deserves credit too. Europe vs. the World is simple and easy to grab onto. No gimmicks, no complicated structures. Europe still has the depth, but Team World brings a kind of scrappy energy that levels the scales. And unlike Davis Cup or the Olympics, where scheduling and politics often muddy the waters, the Laver Cup keeps it clean: three days, one rivalry, winner takes it.<\/p>\n

What stood out most, though, was the joy. Opelka laughing. Agassi pumping his fist. De Minaur practically glowing from the energy around him. These are the kinds of moments tennis usually hides, buried under headphones and solitary routines. Seeing them out in the open, as part of something bigger than just one match, reminded us why we love sports in the first place.<\/p>\n

The Laver Cup doesn\u2019t need to replace the DNA of tennis. The sport will always be singles and doubles at its core. But weekends like this show what\u2019s possible when you shake things up. When you let players be teammates, let legends like Agassi step in and coach, and give fans a chance to feel closer to the action, the sport feels alive in a new way.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why this will be remembered as the weekend tennis forgot it hates team sports. It wasn\u2019t awkward, it wasn\u2019t forced, and it wasn\u2019t fake. It was just pure, simple fun. And in tennis, that\u2019s rare enough to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This weekend\u2019s Laver Cup in San Francisco was just plain fun. And that\u2019s not something tennis fans get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-159324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}