SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 On the eve of the Laver Cup, Yannick Noah, the French tennis legend in his first stint as the captain of Team Europe, spoke about how much tennis he watches these days.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot much,\u201d Noah said in a news conference, adding he had never met three members of his team before this week.<\/p>\n
A little while later, Pat Rafter, the Australian fixture of the late 1990s who is vice captain of Team World \u2014 the amalgam of players from Australia, the United States and South America who will take on the Europeans \u2014 was puzzling out who to match up against Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 1 and star of Team Europe.<\/p>\n
Rafter said that with Alcaraz slated for Saturday, Team World could not pick who to face him. Except, it could. This year\u2019s edition of the team event is in San Francisco, so Team World gets dibs on first selection for either of the weekend days. It had to choose by Friday; Rafter was speaking Thursday, in public, giving the game away to his opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo they know that, though?\u201d Rafter, now a bit concerned, asks Team World captain Andre Agassi. \u201cHave I blown it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey do now,\u201d Agassi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how much I know what\u2019s going on,\u201d Rafter said a few beats later.<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz, Team World\u2019s top-ranked player and de facto on-court leader, knows exactly what is going on. He is one of the fiercest competitors on the ATP Tour, and he knows that Sunday, when each win is worth 3 points as opposed to 2 on Saturday and 1 Friday, is when to pick. The Laver Cup is designed such that it always comes down to the final day.<\/p>\n
Agassi thought Saturday was better. Rafter didn\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s like the most insane thing ever,\u201d Fritz said of Agassi\u2019s logic.<\/p>\n
The captains had to submit their picks for the first round of matches simultaneously, before strategizing on Day 2 and Day 3. There was an odd moment of confusion during the Friday night doubles match that pitted Alcaraz and Jakub Mensik against Fritz and Alex Michelsen. The first game went to deuce, and after the next point, Alcaraz and Mensik started to walk to the sideline because the competition follows ATP rules, which means sudden-death deuce scoring for doubles. The chair umpire had to remind the players that the Laver Cup does it the old-fashioned way.<\/p>\n
Fritz\u2019s Team World kit from his sponsor, Boss, is a slightly different shade of red than the rest of the team\u2019s.<\/p>\n
These little details and exchanges represent the quandary at the heart of the Laver Cup. It has wrestled the tennis world over its identity ever since Roger Federer, his agent and business partner Tony Godsick, the ATP Tour, Tennis Australia and U.S. Tennis Association dreamt it up eight years ago.<\/p>\n
Organizers argue that this ATP-sanctioned event is no hit-and-giggle \u201cexhibition,\u201d that single-word sporting death sentence of trick shots, players wearing headsets and artificial competition designed to stretch even the most one-sided matches to their longest possible conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can assure you this is no exhibition,\u201d John McEnroe, the Team World captain for the first seven years, insisted during a chat with a few journalists Friday evening.<\/p>\n
That said, the Laver Cup matches do not come with ranking points. There are also the occasional hijinks on the sidelines, the captains exaggerating their sporting personalities to play to the gallery on controversial calls and celebrations. Or maybe that\u2019s just how they have wanted to act all along. Agassi has been doling out chest-bumps after every win that look borderline dangerous for the 55-year-old. They seem to be working.<\/p>\n
Team World, who were big underdogs coming in, have a commanding 9-3 lead heading into the final day.<\/p>\n
With their other winning-or-misery tournament lives off the line for once, even the players can be at odds over how important this is. In 2023, F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime and Ga\u00ebl Monfils made the two poles clear during a singles match. Auger-Aliassime of Team World was in competition mode; Monfils of Team Europe said he was there because people \u201ccalled me, they told me, \u2018Oh, the Laver Cup is so nice, you can be free.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The two philosophies clashed, with both players feeling that their idea of the tournament was being undermined by their opponent\u2019s idea of it. Auger-Aliassime even said that \u201ctanking in the Laver Cup is crazy,\u201d which could be said with priestly sincerity or court-jester irony and lose none of its meaning either way.<\/p>\n
Noah, who is succeeding Bj\u00f6rn Borg as steward of Team Europe, sees his tennis consumption habits as no impediment to his role as the leader of Alcaraz, Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev, et al.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just like to listen to them, you know, get to know them and get how they feel about the game, about their journey as tennis players, and then I can find the right words to tell them when they\u2019re playing under pressure,\u201d he said in an interview Thursday.<\/p>\n
And there is pressure, however much of it is peer rather than points. No matter how irreverent and goofy they act in the lead-up, once the balls are flying, players and coaches get fired up. Not Grand-Slam fired up, or even life-or-death Ryder Cup fired up, but fired up nonetheless, and the highs can come without the dread and doom that follow losing in an ATP Tour event or Grand Slam. They are competitors and really can\u2019t help themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was Alcaraz, Friday afternoon, trying to coach Mensik on opening up the court against Michelsen.<\/p>\n
There was Noah Saturday afternoon, at Alexander Zverev\u2019s knees during a changeover, urging him to step back on the second serve against Alex de Minaur, wait for a high ball and crush it with a forehand.<\/p>\n
It is a mostly self-flagellation-free week, with bloopers that will be lost in time rather than replayed in players\u2019 minds, even though there is a good bit of money on the line. Each participant receives an appearance fee based on their singles ranking, with some latitude for players with additional star power if the situation calls for that. Each player on the winning team receives $250,000. The losing team receives nothing beyond the appearance fees.<\/p>\n
Half the team is selected based on ranking. The captains, with assistance from the organizers who need to sell tickets, make the other selections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel like you\u2019re playing also for your teammates and your captains,\u201d said Ruud, who is in his fifth Laver Cup. \u201cI\u2019ve been on the winning side of matches here and the losing side, and winning is a much better feeling, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruud led off this year\u2019s competition against Reilly Opelka. He had one of the best serving days of his life, blasting in about 80 percent of his first serves. Opelka said he wasn\u2019t surprised, calling Ruud one of the best servers in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he always like that?\u201d Rafter asked him during the news conference after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Opelka told Rafter, who is more of a surfer than a tennis expert these days. <\/p>\n
Men\u0161\u00edk and Michelsen played a cracker of a match, decided by a 10-point tiebreaker after a rise-from-the-dead comeback from Michelsen. Flavio Cobolli\u2019s battle with Jo\u00e3o Fonseca, the 19-year-old Brazilian phenom, had Team World surrounding the teenager on the bench and chanting \u201cJoaoaoooooo Fonseeeeeeca\u2026Joaoaoooooo Fonseeeeeeca\u2026..\u201d<\/p>\n
Federer has been courtside from nearly the first ball to the last at every session.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot lose with Roger cheering for me,\u201d Cobolli said to Noah and vice-captain Tim Henman in the middle of the match.<\/p>\n
No such luck for Cobolli, who lost in straight sets.<\/p>\n
In a tight doubles that had the newly silver-haired Alcaraz thrilling the crowd with some nasty curling forehands into the seams of open space, Michelsen nailed Mensik in the back with an overhead from close range at the net.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By day\u2019s end, the Europeans held a 3-1 lead. However, the scoring system, with increasing points for each match each day, allowed De Minaur to draw Team World even by mid-afternoon Saturday as he had his way with Zverev, 6-1, 6-4. Zverev tossed his racket across the court midway through. He said he has practiced little the past three weeks and had two injections to treat back pain.<\/p>\n
70% of the earth is covered by water. <\/p>\n
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