In 1990, the Wightman Cup was discontinued. From Helen Wills Moody, Dorothy Round and Maureen Connolly to Billie Jean King, Virginia Wade and Chris Evert, the annual showdown between the US and Great Britain had been graced by some of the greatest names in the history of women’s tennis. But when the 1989 edition of the team event culminated in a 7-0 US whitewash for the sixth time in 11 years, it was painfully apparent that times had moved on. Britain was a shadow of the force it had been when the competition was founded in 1923.
“You have to be realistic,” said Ann Jones, the former Wimbledon and French Open champion and a regular captain of the British team. “We haven’t done very well over the last few years.”
Nobody would wish the Laver Cup to go the same way, but Sunday’s anticlimactic finale at Boston’s TD Garden offered a salutary warning about the dangers of lopsided competition. With Team Europe leading 11-1 after the first two days’ play, Team World’s slender hopes of claiming a first victory at the nascent event hinged on winning all four of the scheduled matches. Instead, the whole thing was done and dusted in less than two hours, as Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev subdued Reilly Opelka and Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 10-3 to complete a 14-1 rout.
Team Europe has now won each of the competition’s first four editions. A 15-9 victory at the inaugural event in Prague four years ago was followed by a 13-8 triumph in Chicago the year after, before Bjorn Borg’s men edged a 13-11 thriller in Geneva in 2019. The Laver Cup remains a fantastic spectacle, and the novelty of watching the sport’s star individuals cast aside their competitive differences and join forces in pursuit of a common goal is not about to wear off anytime soon. An event that can unite Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as a doubles pair, as happened in 2017, or offer amusing moments like the one that saw Daniil Medvedev attempting to cast Matteo Berrettini in his own mould by advising the big-hitting Italian just to focus on making more balls, is unlikely to want for spectators in the short term. Equally, uncertainty is the lifeblood of sport and, if the Laver Cup continues in its present one-sided vein, there will inevitably come a time when entertaining vignettes are no longer enough to put bums on seats. Federer, the event’s godfather, understands this well, and it may explain why Andrey Rublev jokingly accused the Swiss of supporting Team World at one point during the weekend.
With Federer and Nadal recovering from injury, and Novak Djokovic taking a well-earned rest after falling at the final hurdle in his bid for a calendar-year grand slam, this was meant to be the year when Team World finally stepped up. “This is our time,” promised Nick Kyrgios on the eve of the tournament. While that always smacked of optimism, given that Team Europe had six of the world’s top-10 players in their ranks, the unbalanced nature of the contest still came as something of a surprise. The result certainly gave the lie to any suggestion that the Laver Cup is nothing more than a glorified exhibition. What happened in Boston was more execution than exhibition.
There was a wry smile from John McEnroe, the Team World captain, when Borg pointed out in his post-victory address that there were “a lot of close matches, and it could have gone either way”. While there was a germ of truth in that assessment – six of the nine matches went to tiebreaks – Team World were well beaten in the end, as McEnroe conceded.
“Obviously, if you get a couple of different results, we could have put more pressure on them, but we just came up short in [five] tiebreakers,” said McEnroe. “Win half those and it’s a totally different story. Even other matches, we had a chance to get in. We gave it our best, but they were too good.”
What then to do? An obvious option would be to introduce women into the mix. For years, the women’s game has featured a revolving carousel of geographically diverse major champions. Imagine a Team World side bolstered by the inclusion of Serena Williams, Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka, or a Team Europe featuring the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek and Karolina Pliskova. It would showcase the game in a more inclusive light, further broaden the Laver Cup’s audience and appeal, and add a fresh dimension to the competition’s format, allowing women’s and mixed doubles into the picture.
McEnroe has called for the tournament to be afforded greater prominence, arguing that it is a mistake to dilute its impact by allowing other events to run concurrently. “I don’t think there should be any tournaments going on if they want to try to get to the level of a Ryder Cup, say. It’s got to stand on its own,” said the former world No 1. “It’s not going to be like, ‘Well, other players need to be able to play and … get their points at the [tournament] in Kazakhstan or wherever they are right now.’ I just don’t agree with that. I think it’s a mistake by the ATP.”
What if the entire tennis world, ATP and WTA events alike, stood still for a Laver Cup bolstered by the world’s best women? At a stroke, the profile of the tournament would be further magnified and, crucially, the event would become more competitive.
Whatever happens next, there is no denying the Laver Cup’s singular attraction. With its distinctive black courts and association with Rod Laver, Federer, Borg and McEnroe, as well as young, rising champions like Zverev and Medvedev, it has quickly established its own distinct sense of history and tradition. It features a stellar cast that unites the game’s past, present and future. Players and public alike love it. It is, in short, unique. But then so was the Wightman Cup.