Laver Cup
\n De Minaur channels Federer\u2019s playbook, upsets Zverev at Laver Cup<\/p>\n
Team World and Team Europe now level at 3-3<\/p>\n
September 20, 2025<\/p>\n
Eakin Howard\/Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n
Alex de Minaur defeats Alexander Zverev in straight sets on Saturday in San Francisco.
\n By ATP Staff<\/p>\n
Alex de Minaur<\/a> turned his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Alexander Zverev<\/a> upside down Saturday at the Laver Cup<\/a>. <\/p>\n The Australian upset the No. 3 player in the PIF ATP Rankings 6-1, 6-4 to draw Team World level with Team Europe at three points each. Team World\u2019s Francisco Cerundolo<\/a> faces Team Europe\u2019s Holger Rune<\/a> to close the day session.<\/p>\n \u201cI started out of the blocks pretty quickly and I was playing some great tennis,\u201d De Minaur said. \u201cI knew it was only going to get harder. He\u2019s a great competitor. He was going to make my life very difficult, but utlimately I\u2019m so proud of myself [for] backing myself in these important moments and getting a big win for Team World.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Zverev entered the clash with an 8-2 lead in their rivalry and in De Minaur\u2019s two victories, he needed three grueling sets to emerge victorious. But in San Francisco, De Minaur took advantage of the slow, low-bouncing conditions by changing his game.<\/p>\n Former World No. 1 Jim Courier<\/a> noted in his on-court interview that De Minaur used his backhand slice to great effect, like Roger Federer<\/a>, who was in the stands, used to do.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to say too much,\u201d De Minaur said. \u201cBut he wrote the playbook, I just read it.\u201d<\/p>\n The 10-time ATP Tour titlist saved three of the four break points he faced according to Infosys ATP Stats and converted four of his seven opportunities.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laver Cup De Minaur channels Federer\u2019s playbook, upsets Zverev at Laver Cup Team World and Team Europe now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-170680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}