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regular-article-logo Saturday, 23 November 2024

Laver Cup: Team Europe in driving seat

The absence of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic for this year’s event has proved to be no hindrance as the group maintained a spotless record over the first two days

Reuters Boston Published 27.09.21, 02:06 AM
Stefanos Tsitsipas

Stefanos Tsitsipas File picture

Stefanos Tsitsipas won his singles contest before returning to court with Andrey Rublev to triumph in doubles as Team Europe swept all matches on Saturday and are one victory away against Team World to maintain their iron grip on the Laver Cup.

Team Europe have won all three editions of the Laver Cup so far and were on the cusp of a fourth after the Bjorn Borg-captained side went ahead 11-1 at the end of second day’s play at Boston’s TD Garden.

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The absence of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic for this year’s event has proved to be no hindrance as Team Europe maintained a spotless record in the six singles matches over the first two days.

Named after Australian great Rod Laver, the three-day team event pits six of Europe’s top players against six of their counterparts from the rest of the world, with four matches played each day — three singles and a doubles.

In Saturday’s first match, world No. 3 Tsitsipas did not leave the court against Nick Kyrgios but required some time to replace a worn-out pair of shoes during a 6-3, 6-4 win.

Tsitsipas came under scrutiny at the US Open for both the timing and length of his mid-match bathroom breaks. But this time he was in control of the match and had a clear reason for the stoppage.

The Greek returned to the multipurpose indoor arena with Russian world No. 5 Rublev and rallied to beat the pairing of American John Isner and Australian Kyrgios 6-7(8), 6-3 (10-4).

Germany’s Alexander Zverev, ranked fourth in the world, also needed the 10-point match tie-breaker in the final set to tame big-serving Isner 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 10-5.

US Open champion Daniil Medvedev had a more comfortable outing in the night session against Canada’s Denis Shapovalov and won 6-4, 6-0.

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