T he sight of a tennis player marching to the bathroom between sets has become increasingly common in modern tennis but Alexander Zverev’s journey back to the locker room in Prague nine years ago remains particularly remarkable. On this occasion, Zverev happened to be sandwiched between two of the greatest male players of all time. Neither legend was happy.
To his right, an incensed Roger Federer spent their walk back to the locker room brutally laying down the law: “I want a fist pump or a ‘Let’s go!’ every fucking point you win,” he said. “And every point you lose, you fucking take it like a man. Because the problem is, when you don’t have the [result] you want, it’s like: ‘Ah, I knew it. Fuck, shit.’ I don’t want … honestly!”
As Federer mercilessly told Zverev off, cursing, shaking his head and even mocking the then-20-year-old’s negative body language until they disappeared into the locker room, his message was amusingly ad-libbed to Zverev’s left by Rafael Nadal, the good cop: “Not one negative face,” he ordered.
Prague 2017 marked the first year of the Laver Cup, an event masterminded by Federer and his longtime manager Tony Godsick. If ever there was an image that validated and underlined the value of the competition, a Ryder Cup-style event that pits Team World and Team Europe against each other, it was this one.
Catching such an unfiltered glimpse into Federer’s demeanour away from the cameras was rare enough, but this was even more remarkable considering the recipient of Federer’s passion and ire happened to be the fast rising world No 4, one of the players hoping to end his reign at the top of the sport.
Nine years on, the Laver Cup returns to London at an interesting point in its development. After initially being viewed as an adversary to the Davis Cup and ATP events, it is now an official part of the calendar and has firmed up its place in the tennis ecosystem. The event has allowed the likes of Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to compete alongside each other as well as a score of other top players. Although there is naturally far less star power on the tour today, its current iteration is clearly led by its one global star: Carlos Alcaraz.
The tournament’s organisers have long held visions of this event attaining a similar status within tennis as the Ryder Cup; one of the most important events on the calendar. It is difficult to imagine that happening for various reasons, starting with the decision to return to London. While it has always presented a good spectacle, a glance over the Laver Cup’s company accounts suggests a more complicated story.
The tournament made operating losses of £1.8m in Vancouver in 2023, and on the face of it a much healthier £2,000 in 2024, when the event was held in Berlin. However, this includes “non-tournament revenue”, in other words an injection of cash. Without that additional money, Berlin 2024 would have lost £1.5m.
By far its best performing events were Boston in 2021, which made an operating profit of £4.9m, and London, which delivered £4.1m in 2022. This is surely a significant reason why the organisers were willing to return four years later. The accounts of San Francisco 2025 have not yet been published. At the moment, it appears that there are a limited number of markets where this event can truly be profitable.
Every year since 2017, arguments have raged about whether the Laver Cup should be described as an exhibition, a word that many view as a filthy phrase that describes an unserious hit-and-giggle affair. These arguments seem quite irrelevant. This is obviously, at the very least, a special event considering some of the invitations are arbitrary, its rules are convoluted and there are no ranking points on offer.
However, one of the common characteristics of a top tennis player is their intense competitiveness. This event has produced plenty of high-quality tennis and tightly contested matches between players trying their hardest to win.
But there are limits to the competitive nature of these events. It is hard to imagine the Laver Cup generating the emotions, negative and positive, that some of the biggest events will do. Alcaraz is never going to sit down with his team at the end of the season and anguish over how he let the Laver Cup get away, nor will he put his body on the line and prioritise this event over more important tournaments.
That’s fine. The Laver Cup doesn’t have to be enormous or massively meaningful to add great value to the sport. Since its inception, it has been a slick, well-run event that has been willing to innovate and present the sport in a different light. The sight of longtime rivals suddenly working together is incomparable to anything else in the sport and it has been fascinating to see the players’ competitiveness come alive under different circumstances.
In the final stretch of a gruelling season, when most players are tired and diehard fans have spent the past nine months watching tennis in the exact same format every week, the Laver Cup also represents a nice interlude before the final run-in to the ATP and Davis Cup Finals. Perhaps most of all, it has repeatedly delivered on what should be the most important aspect of all sporting events: entertainment. It will do so this weekend as tennis returns to the O2 Arena once more.
