Inside the rise of the Laver Cup: From Roger Federer’s dream to tennis’ exciting team event

SAN FRANCISCO — Roger Federer had a primary goal in mind when he started working on the concept of the Laver Cup nine years ago.

“I hope to create something to really pay tribute to the past generation of players,” Federer told The Sporting News.

Entering its eighth year, the Laver Cup will welcome two new captains: Andre Agassi for Team World and Yannick Noah for Team Europe. After seven years of seeing rivals John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg lead the world’s top players in a three-day team event, the Laver Cup has become incredibly popular with tennis fans.

“I’m a big historian of the game,” Federer told SN. “It’s always been very important to know about Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King and Rod Laver and so forth. But I’ve come to realize that players sometimes don’t look into the past anymore, which is fine. But they should know about the past. And I think with the Laver Cup, we kind of tried to do that a little bit. I hope that them hearing these stories from the good old days, it’s going to really make them understand how fortunate we are, and actually who has paved the way for us.”

The Laver Cup has not only survived a crowded tennis schedule and cancellation of the 2020 event but has emerged as one of the sport’s marquee annual events. Federer and Laver Cup chairman Tony Godsick, Federer’s agent, were the driving forces behind the formation of the event.

Four of the sport’s top eight and eight of the top 25 players will be among the 2025 Laver Cup participants when players gather in a sold-out Chase Center in San Francisco for the three-day event from Sept. 19-21. Two others, Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul, were committed but withdrew due to injuries suffered at the U.S. Open, and a third American, Francis Tiafoe, was also a late scratch.

The new World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, fresh off his U.S. Open title, will be in attendance for the second straight year, and World No. 5 Taylor Fritz will participate two weeks after reaching the U.S. Open quarterfinal.

“I just really wanted to be part of the Laver Cup again, because I loved that atmosphere there,” Alcaraz told SN earlier this summer. “It was special. You get to know the players much better off the court. For me, it was great. I’m excited about playing again.”

Having captains and vice captains such as Borg, McEnroe, Agassi, Noah, Patrick Rafter, Tim Henman, Patrick McEnroe and Thomas Enqvist, Federer said he wanted to create an immersive experience for the players to experience the past, present and future of the game.

“Then (the players) leave the Laver Cup, and hopefully are incredibly motivated for the tour again,” Federer told SN. “Would we sell almost 100,000 tickets for the event and have the vibe and camaraderie we’ve had? I didn’t know if that was going to happen. I think the support of John McEnroe early, and the vision of Tony and (Laver Cup CEO) Steve Zacks, has been incredible. So it has exceeded what we hoped for. We’re very, very happy.”

MORE: Complete guide to Laver Cup 2025

Laver Cup attracts top players

Godsick remembers the days in 2016 when tennis agents and players turned the other way when they saw Zacks coming.

Zacks, the Laver Cup CEO, was charged with recruiting the game’s top talent for a three-day event that would debut in 2017 in Prague.

“(The players were like) ‘Who is this guy?’” Godsick told SN. “And now, he just sits at a table in the corner of the players’ lounge, and they all come to him, which is really nice. He’s developed some wonderful friendships, and the players have bought in.”

Godsick and Zacks know the players will make or break the event, and their goal is to make sure the players want to return. There are appearance fees based on their ranking, the Monday following Roland Garros, and each member of the winning side gets an additional $250,000. The losing side gets nothing but the appearance fee.

“We try really hard from the beginning to take care of our players,” Godsick said.

I hope that (the players) hearing these stories from the good old days, it’s going to really make them understand how fortunate we are, and actually who has paved the way for us.” — Roger Federer

This will be at least the third Laver Cup appearance for four of the 12 participants this year, and Zverev is coming back for the sixth time. The calendar can be a challenge, given that the Davis Cup is holding matches the week leading up to the event and the tour is just two weeks clear of the U.S. Open, but players are finding ways to make it fit with their schedules.

“The players generally loved the event,” said John McEnroe, who was Team World’s captain for the first seven competitions.

New team World captain Andre Agassi was initially skeptical of the players’ buy-in to a team format for an individual sport. But it did not take him long to understand that the event is unique.

“I heard coaches talk about it, some people I know talk about it, I heard business people talk about it from a hospitality perspective, and I called B—– on all of it, so I had to go see it,” Agassi said on Andy Roddick’s ‘Served’ podcast in June.

“I’ve asked people, if I could give you quarterfinal tickets to a grand slam, or tickets to the Laver Cup, what would you pick? They all said, tickets to Laver, because we know who we are going to see, and we’re going to be able to see them play doubles. This is straight to the veins if you love tennis.”

Zacks said his job of landing commitments became easier once the event came to life.

“A lot of the players after the first year had watched it themselves, and they were excited to take part because they saw just how exciting it was,” he said. “When you talk to the players, they love being mentored by these tennis greats, partnering up with their rivals. It’s one of the rare opportunities to do it. They get to learn from each other.”

MORE: Laver Cup history and all-time results

The team element raises intensity 

Tennis has plenty of exhibition events on the calendar that play to worldwide crowds. This is not that.

“The players legitimately take pride in not only trying to beat their opponent, not only to impress their teammates, but also to show their teammates some things, too. It is real, intense competition,” Agassi said.

While there are no ranking points available, the players compete for the prize money and head-to-head singles matches go on their ATP records as an ATP-sanctioned event. The players not in action sit courtside and display more emotion than when they are actually on the court competing.

“The intensity that we played the matches, I think it’s pretty high,” Alcaraz said. “It took me by surprise the first year that I played there. I loved it.”

Team World

Team Europe

Laver Cup sticks to the format

The Laver Cup established its format for the premiere competition in 2017, and it has not needed to alter it in any way. There are six players from Team Europe, six players from Team World. Four matches on Day 1 are worth one point, four matches on Day 2 are worth two points and four matches on Day 3 are worth three points. Each day features three singles matches and one doubles match, best-of-three sets with the third set being a 10-point tiebreaker. Twenty-four points are available, so the first team to secure 13 points wins. In the event of a 12-12 tie on Sunday, which has yet to happen, a one-set, winner-take-all doubles match would be the decider.

Five of the seven Laver Cups have seen at least three matches played on Sunday, with the 2017 and 2019 going the full distance before a winner was declared.

“The format was set up in a way that could make it where the underdogs could do well, or if it more evenly matched it being even more unpredictable,” McEnroe said. “They did a nice job with that.”

Team Europe has enjoyed an advantage in the rankings of its players almost every year, but there have only been two one-sided Laver Cups, with each side winning one.

San Francisco and beyond

The site alternates between Europe and ‘the World’, with North America landing all four home Laver Cups. Chicago, Boston and Vancouver were the first three North American cities to host, and now San Francisco, after an enthusiastic bid, will get its shot.

“The arena and the experience is one of the most important things, right? And in the case of San Francisco, it’s one of the best there is,” Zacks said. “The Warriors organization has been a big part of why we went to the Chase Center. You know, Sheena Way, who’s their VP of content and programming, came to Boston. They expressed interest in us coming there. We came and looked at it with her and with Brandon Schneider, who’s the president and CEO, and they impressed upon us that they would help us make it the best Laver Cup ever. And they’re an incredible team. That’s one of the reasons why they’re so successful.”

Warriors star Steph Curry has expressed excitement about tennis taking over his home arena for a week. Jimmy Butler is another member of the Warriors with an affinity for tennis who will likely make his presence felt at some point over the weekend.

The Laver Cup tries to leave a legacy behind in each city. In San Francisco, six public courts were resurfaced at John McLaren Park and Federer and Noah spent part of Tuesday hitting balls with youth players from San Francisco’s Youth Tennis Advantage.

“It is important that we don’t just show up and leave and maybe leave some good memories, some good matches and all that,” Federer said. “We need to go maybe a level, or a few levels deeper. And I think by giving back a tennis court, like a resurfacing court here, and showing up, feeling that we are part of the community, that we care about the city truly, is very important for me. It’s important for us to all team up for good causes, and this is definitely one of them. So I’m happy with the Laver Cup and all the parties we were able to do it.” 

The 2026 Laver Cup will return to London, which famously hosted the final match of Federer’s career in the 2021 Laver Cup. He teamed with Rafael Nadal in a Friday night doubles match that is remembered as one of the most emotionally charged scenes in the sport in decades. For now, the black court will be laid out in San Francisco, giving fans more elite tennis two weeks after an eventful U.S. Open that ended with Alcaraz besting Jannik Sinner in the latest chapter of their rivalry.

“(The Laver Cup) has exceeded our wildest expectations,” Godsick said. “When we created it on a piece of paper, the format, the whole thing, with a goal. Roger really wanted to do something, not only to honor Rod Laver, but these contemporaries who gave up so much. We’ve had incredible Laver Cups. I can’t believe we’re going on our eighth. They’ve all been so popular. We’ve learned a lot along the way.”