Can the Laver Cup Become the Ryder Cup of Tennis?

Posted on September 26 2017

Catch any of the Laver Cup this weekend? Do you think it can overtake the Davis Cup someday? Check out what some of our pundits say as well as a few clips!

Can the Laver Cup Become the Ryder Cup of Tennis?

In a word, no. Although the tournament provided great entertainment, most notably seeing Federer and Nadal playing doubles, it still maintained the feeling of an exhibition. With the existence of the Davis Cup, tennis already has an extremely competitive international tournament for fans to get behind and this leads me to question the relevance of the Laver Cup.

Whilst the competition undoubtedly provided crowds with great excitement it is unlikely that it will be possible to recreate the passions that are experienced in the Davis Cup.

I think back to watching Spain vs the USA in the Davis Cup semi-final as every first serve Andy Roddick missed was cheered unashamedly by 20,000 Spaniards and feel like this will always be the pinnacle of team competition.

It is this similar rivalry that the Ryder Cup is based on, passions run deep and competition is fierce between Europe and the USA but there was not that competitive edge between Team Europe and Team World in the Laver Cup.

While this may be true, I was impressed with the scoring system (which I was originally very skeptical about,) it meant that despite Team Europe taking an early lead there was still drama on the last day and everything was left to play for.

All in all, the Laver Cup was a great spectacle and as an exhibition type tournament was brilliant and at the end of the day who is ever going to forget Rafael Nadal coming up to Roger Federer to give him coaching advice as they battled it out on the same team?

More Posts

Search our store