-Chicago, Illinois
Thursday afternoon the first four matches were announced for the opening day of the Laver Cup event in Chicago. Team Europe and Team World Captains Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe went back and forth revealing the players they had chosen for the first three singles matches.
Not to take away anything from Frances Tiafoe, Grigor Dimitrov, Jack Sock, Kyle Edmund, David Goffin and Diego Schwartzman who are all incredible talents but those weren’t the names many wanted to hear out of the gate. Luckily, the best was saved for last. After McEnroe announced Sock would play his second match on the opening day partnering with Kevin Anderson for the lone doubles match, Borg made the media contingent on hand “gasp” as he announced Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic be their opponents playing together as a team for the first time ever in the final match of the night.
Friday night in Chicago, two of the all-time greats playing in front of a packed house in the one of the best buildings in sports, the United Center, Appropriately named the “Madhouse on Madison” because of the raucous crowds during Blackhawks hockey games and Bulls basketball games, it may not be quite that crazy on Friday night for tennis but the atmosphere should still be electric.
“I’m thrilled, excited, I have never played with Novak,” said Federer.” We have had so many great battles in all the singles courts, and to finally team up together I think is going to be very special for both of us.”
“Very, very excited to have the unique experience,” said the reigning Wimbledon and US Open champion. ‘We never played doubles together. This is what this competition is all about, you know, bringing us all together. We are going to have Anderson and Sock, who is one of the best doubles players in the world, across the net. We are going to have a great challenge and hopefully great support from team members and we can have fun.”
Similar to first edition of the Laver Cup last year, much of the hype leading up to the event was whether Federer would play doubles alongside one of the other games greats. In Prague, that was Rafael Nadal. They did and they were victorious but they didn’t play until the second night. This year the crowd will get to watch the No. 2 and No. 3 players in the world team up on opening night.
“I did have an inkling they would play. I am surprised they would play the first day,” said McEnroe. “They were anxious to play so I put them together,” said Borg.
With 34 Grand Slams and over $200 million in on-court earnings it appears Djokovic has decided to let one of the co-founders of the event take charge of the team. When asked who would play where on the court during the match on Friday…”I hand it to Roger. He decides.” “I think I will take the deuce side,” said Federer. “If Novak is okay with that, I will be happy to play on the deuce side.” The Djokovic response “I think I’m okay on the backhand,” he said with a grin, which drew laughter from the crowd.
The Laver Cup team style format proved to be highly successful last year. Along with great matches and crowds in Prague, it was hard to wipe the smiles off the faces of the players. The event came down to the deciding match with Federer coming back to defeat Nick Kyrgios to give Team Europe the trophy.
All matches are best of three, the final set a ten-point tiebreaker if needed. Similar to a Ryder Cup-like format in golf, at the Laver Cup on the first day matches are worth one point each. Saturday matches are worth two points and Sunday three points. 13 points are needed to claim the trophy.
The Friday singles matches starting at 1:00pm local time will feature Frances Tiafoe vs Grigor Dimitrov followed by Jack Sock vs Kyle Edmund. Diego Schwartzman vs David Goffin will be the first match of the night session starting at 7:00pm.
If you have any inclination that the event isn’t highly contested and the players aren’t going all out and taking the event seriously, Team World member John Isner had this to say “100-percent serious. This is not an exhibition at all. At all. 100-percent”
This is the first time top level tennis has been played in Chicago in a number of years. Ironically in 1991, Team World captain John McEnroe defeated his brother Team World vice-captain Patrick McEnroe in the Final of a tournament at the old Chicago Stadium.
@Sportshorn
