Laver Cup
\n Alcaraz\/Ruud give Team Europe life with Laver Cup doubles win<\/p>\n
Team World now leads 9-6 in San Francisco<\/p>\n
September 21, 2025<\/p>\n
Photo by Joe Scarnici\/Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz and Casper Ruud moved Team Europe within touching distance of Team World on Laver Cup’s final day.
\n By Arthur Kapetanakis<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Casper Ruud<\/a> changed the complexion of the Laver Cup<\/a> with a much-needed doubles win for Team Europe to open Sunday’s action in San Francisco. After Team World swept Saturday’s play without dropping a set to lead 9-3, Alcaraz and Ruud cut the deficit to 9-6 in the first-to-13 event, with each Sunday match worth three points.<\/p>\n The Europeans earned a 7-6(4), 6-1 win against Alex Michelsen<\/a> and Reilly Opelka<\/a>, battling back from 1\/4 in the first-set tie-break to take control. Alcaraz and Ruud did not face a break point in the match, according to Infosys ATP Stats, but they needed 11 break points before finally breaking their opponents early in set two.<\/p>\n “We stayed really strong, really solid. We did what we had to do and I think that it worked pretty well,” Alcaraz said of their patience.<\/p>\n Two points defined the match. At 1\/4 in the tie-break, Team World thought they came out on top in a thrilling exchange only to find that Michelsen’s reflex volley sailed just beyond the baseline. That started a run of six straight points to seal the set, followed by a run of five consecutive games in set two.<\/p>\n Midway through the second set, Alcaraz hit the shot of the match: a preposterous drop volley that left Michelsen stranded despite the American standing well inside the service line.<\/p>\n “Sometimes a lot of ideas come to my mind,” Alcaraz said of his shotmaking abilities. “I just enjoy making the choices. I think in that position it was the only shot or the best shot I could choose in that moment.”<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laver Cup Alcaraz\/Ruud give Team Europe life with Laver Cup doubles win Team World now leads 9-6 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-172731","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\/172731","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=172731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}