Alex de Minaur produced a stunning comeback against Alexander Zverev at The O2 on Saturday, overturning a one-set deficit before winning 2-6 7-6(5) 11-9 to put Team World ahead 5-3 on the Laver Cup leaderboard.
A year after De Minaur produced one of the standout performances of Team World’s 2025 title run by defeating Zverev in San Francisco, the Australian faced the German again with the stakes just as high.
Team World had started Saturday trailing 1-3, the same deficit it faced in San Francisco before sweeping all four matches on the second day to turn the contest around. With Saturday victories worth two points, Learner Tien leveled the scoreboard in Match 5, defeating Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 2-6, 10-7.
The task before De Minaur appeared steep. Not only did his opponent come into the match in the best form of his career – winning two Grand Slam titles and reaching three consecutive major finals this year – Zverev held an 8-3 advantage over De Minaur in their career head-to-head record.
For much of the opening set, it was easy to see why. Zverev imposed himself from the baseline, using his booming serve, penetrating forehand and two-handed backhand to keep De Minaur behind the baseline. The Australian’s trademark speed and court coverage could not prevent Zverev from taking control, as the German broke twice and raced to a 5-1 lead before closing out the set 6-2.
But De Minaur has built his reputation on finding a way when matches become difficult, and has been dubbed “unstoppable” by Team World captain Andre Agassi.
The Australian started moving forward more frequently, finding success at the net while using his angles to pull Zverev out of position. The pressure began to tell, as Zverev made more errors.
Team Europe’s Alexander Zverev began his match against De Minaur in full control until the Australian found a way to put pressure on the German.
With cries of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” heard around the stadium, De Minaur pushed the second set into a seven-point tiebreak, which he won 7-5.
Next up was a 10-point super tiebreaker, the fourth of Laver Cup London 2026.
Zverev made the better start, opening a 3-0 lead and later moving ahead 6-4, but De Minaur would not go away. He threw himself at volleys, diving for shots until his knees were bleeding, and kept finding a way back into the match.
Zverev eventually had the first match point at 9-8, but De Minaur saved it. The Australian then earned his own match point at 10-9, and this time, he made it count.
Two hours after they began, De Minaur had defeated Zverev, keeping his unblemished singles record in Laver Cup intact.
When asked to describe what was going through his mind after the short first set, De Minaur said:
“What was going through my mind is that I was in a fair bit of strife, and it was looking quite bleak.”
“I thought that Sascha came out of the blocks firing, and he was hitting the ball at a very high level with a lot of pace from both wings, and I was struggling to kind of find a lot of inroads.” The game plan was to “change it up as much as I could,” De Minaur said.
“I managed to get a little bit more returns in play, change my return position, gave different looks, and slowly kind of crawled my way into the match. Yeah, and then took my opportunities when they presented it.”
Sitting beside his fellow Australian at the post match press conference, Team World vice-captain Patrick Rafter if it felt like a “boost” taking a win off one of Team Europe’s must successful players.
“Bloody oath it is,” he replied candidly.
“It’s massive. I mean, the way he [Zverev] came out, he obviously showed that he was the No. 1 player or becoming No. 1 player in the world, and he wanted to just stick it to us, and ‘how dare you beat us last year. It’s just not going to happen’.
“He came out like that, and you just saw the fight of Alex. So, you know, that’s what makes this event pretty cool, because the impact of the bench and playing for your teammates has a different type of feel to it as well.”
