“This is a week that, as you said, I can train or rest. But weeks like this help me a lot to get my joy back on the court, the joy of playing tennis, and it helps me a lot in the next tournaments when it’s not team events.”
The issue had a certain history. Two years ago, almost to the day, Alcaraz used the Laver Cup press conference in Berlin to deliver a line that has permeated the scheduling debate ever since, saying of the calendar that “they’re probably going to kill us somehow.” He was once accused of wanting it from both sides, given that the Laver Cup does not award ranking points and is outside the official calendar he criticized. He has since stood by the original interpretation.
What he proposed in London is a reconciliation of the two positions. The distinction he draws is not between official tournaments and exhibitions, but between playing alone and playing with a team. “This event is unique because the players that I usually fight with throughout the year, having them coach sometimes is great,” he said. “You can see the matches and the tennis much better from outside. So when they come to me and say things, I’ll try to obey and do my best.”
Its captain, Yannick Noy, prepared a version of the same incident. “We love tennis, we’ve loved it since we were kids, and after the lights go out, we’ll still be playing tennis,” the Frenchman said. “Most of us love football and sometimes we miss the energy you have in the team, in the dressing room. That’s what I discovered last year.”
He has played the event in each of the previous two editions and has a 3-1 singles record with wins over Ben Shelton and Taylor Fritz in 2024 and Francisco Cherundolo in 2025, with his only loss coming to Fritz last year.
Team Europe, who beat Andre Agassi’s Team World 15-9 in San Francisco last year, began their bid to reclaim the title on Friday when Casper Rudd opened against Francisco Cerundolo at the O2.
