Europe won, both in the inaugural competition of 2017 in Prague, and last year in Chicago, and the team led by Bjorn Borg starts off in principle with many options to repeat the victory in a tournament that since this year is part of the ATP Tour , although it will continue without giving ranking points to the participants.
Federer and Nadal, who did not participate last year due to injury, are joined by the Austrian Dominic Thiem, the German Alexander Zverev, and two newcomers, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Italian Fabio Fognini.
The rest of the world team, led by Borg’s eternal rival and longtime friend, John McEnroe, is led by American John Isner, who like his compatriot Jack Sock and Australian Nick Kyrgios, also present in Geneva, has not failed to none of the three dates with the tournament.
On the other hand, the Canadian Milos Raonic and the American Taylor Fritz make their debut alongside that trio, while another Canadian tennis player, Denis Shapovalov, returns to this Europe-World duel after having participated in the first edition of Prague.
Considering the ATP ranking, Europe’s favoritism is absolute, if one takes into account that the worst placed on that list by the European team (Fognini, 11th) is above the best of the rival team (Isner, 20th), although at the end of the season the forces of many are just and the numbers do not count as much.
The three-set matches, which will be played until Sunday at the Palais des Expositions (Palexpo) in Geneva, an installation for 17,000 spectators next to the local airport, begin this Friday with a duel between Thiem and Shapovalov, which will be followed by clashes Sock-Fognini and Tsitsipas-Fritz.
The last match of the day, that of doubles, will measure the pair formed by Federer and Zverev with the Sock-Shapovalov duet, so Nadal will be the only European who will not play games this Friday, and will wait for his debut on Saturday with an opponent not yet decided in a draw.
The tournament, inspired by the Ryder Cup of golf, follows a peculiar scoring system in which matches won on the first day are worth one point, those on the second two, and three on the third and last, when the winner will be declared on the team that reaches or exceeds 13 points, after nine individual matches and three doubles.
The Laver Cup will serve to see Nadal again after his victory in the US Open, which gave him the 19th Grand Slam of his career, and perhaps in his last official matches before his wedding with Francisca Perelló, on October 19 in Pollença (Mallorca), unless you attend the Shanghai Masters 1000 in the week prior to the link, still unconfirmed.
He and Federer, sharing a team, “park” for a few days the competition – not official but present in the minds of many fans – to see who is the best tennis player of all time, since the Swiss only has one more Grand Slam. than the Spanish, without forgetting that the Serbian Novak Djokovic also lurks with 16 titles.
Named in honor of the Australian tennis legend Rod Laver, who will be a luxury spectator in Geneva, the Europe-Rest of the World tournament has among its organizing partners and sponsors Federer himself, who in this edition has managed to bring the competition to his own House. EFE