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Laver Cup Overshadowed by Ryder Cup
13 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
By Scoop Malinowski
The Laver Cup started off with a big bang three years ago, featuring Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. The highlight moment had to be seeing those three titans interacting and supporting each other and playing doubles.
But now the Laver Cup has lost the lifeblood element of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic who all did not play this edition in Boston. The Next Generation had center stage and though they delivered excellent tennis, the event seemed stale and missing tension, passion, fury.
This same weekend, the golf world’s Ryder Cup, which pits America vs Europe, was contested in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Believe it or not, Ryder Cup actually exceeds Laver Cup. The history of America vs Europe is filled with drama and tension and controversial fan involvement. Golfers get so caught up in the heat of the battle that they throw fist pumps and roar as if they are Nadal or Djokovic playing a fifth set of a major. It’s awesome to see.
The Laver Cup format of Europe vs the World isn’t exactly an exciting set up. It just seems like some kind of hodge-podge convenient arrangement to force another tennis event on the schedule. The players don’t seem to really care, most were seen on their phones or trying to look excited during the matches.
Europe winning by a landslide 14-1 didn’t help matters. The Ryder Cup was also a historic blowout with America scoring 19 points, to break the record of 18 1/2.
I tried to watch Laver Cup on Tennis Channel but lost interest quickly. Opelka was not much of a match for Ruud and seeing Federer, Patrick McEnroe and players repeatedly looking at their phones made the event seem unimportant and not even interesting for the participants. What are they really playing for besides money?
The Ryder Cup seems to be about so much more than just money, it’s about pride, bragging rights, honor, and celebrating with teammates. I didn’t see one golfer looking at his phone, even after the outcome was determined by Collin Morikawa’s final putt. All the players were genuinely elated and jubilant and buzzing.
Laver Cup just did not produce such energy or emotions though it tried very hard to, maybe too hard. Ryder Cup is everything Laver Cup wishes and hopes it can become. But will the Europe vs the World dynamic ever really catch on with the public? Does anybody really care who wins? The nationalism factor is absent. Yes, the tennis is high quality, but each match looks like an indoor exo match. To thrive in the future I believe the format has to be changed.
Perhaps North America vs Europe. Or a four team set up, America, Canada, Asia, Europe? Or Next Gen vs Old Gen, with age 30 the divider? I don’t know, maybe tennis fans love it the way it is and I’m just being an overly critical complainer.
Weekend notes:
Stefan Kozlov won the Columbus Challenger singles and doubles today, beating Max Purcell 64 in the third and doubles with Peter Polansky 75 76. It’s Kozlov’s first ATP Challenger title in about three or four years.
Hubert Hurkacz beat Pablo Carreno Busta in Metz final and Soonwoo Kwon won his first ATP title in Kazakhstan defeating Jimmy Duckworth.
Rafi · September 26, 2021 at 10:58 pm
I totally agree with you on many levels about the Laver Cup.
At its debut I got the impression that it was a one time event featuring the big three. Now it feels like an offshoot
of the ATP Cup which on its own is taking some of the zest out of the Australian Open.
But let’s face it with so many tournaments being postponed or
or even cancelled the Laver Cup has become like “we take it when it’s there” type of thing.However it won’t outlive the Davis Cup in my opinion.Until then enjoy!
catherine · September 27, 2021 at 12:52 am
Scoop – the Laver Cup seems about to pass, like Anthony Joshua, into history 🙂
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 7:41 am
Rafi, it’s an okay exhibition but I’d rather see am important Challenger match with two striving, desperate players fighting for points money and status. Like Kozlov’s incredible run in Columbus singles and doubles last week. If they can tweak Laver Cup somehow to make it more dramatic and with higher stakes and pressure, it can be special like Ryder Cup which is a fantastic event.
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 7:45 am
Catherine, I see you were not able to see that Joshua pushed his punches all night and never threw any combinations with mean intentions, he pushed his jab all night too. It was clearly a soft effort to tank the fight to set up the rematch and give his promoter another big star to sell. I realized it was a rigged fight two days before the fight after the weigh in when Joshua made these bizarre comments… http://ringobserver.com/2021/09/24/joshua-sounds-strange-two-days-before-usyk-fight/?fbclid=IwAR21oBtVHNvJ5Q7P1Kpo6Y89vGF9f0AGeR8Zl7sDpKubmPubX0BmNVA4m0s Joshua will win the rematch. Same deal as when he threw the fight to Andy Fatso Ruiz and then won the rematch easily. Rematches for a big star who loses are big money generators.
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 7:48 am
Laver Cup has passed, the Laver Cup players all play nice high quality tennis but the incentive to win the Laver Cup seems like an empty, meaningless prize. The formula needs to be totally revised and overhauled. World vs Europe is a bust.
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 7:56 am
Also Annett Kontaveit won a WTA title, her new coach since US Open is Dimitry Tursunov.
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 8:08 am
Catherine, even WBC no. 1 contender Dillian Whyte noticed it was a tank job by Joshua. Whyte and Joshua are promoted by the same man Eddie Hearn too. Interesting words by Whyte… “I was surprised with how the fight went because I thought Joshua would get it done inside seven rounds because he would enforce his size and bulk on Usyk but he was very reserved and tentative, it was weird,” Whyte told IFL TV.
“Usyk was a lot more aggressive because Joshua allowed him to be, whenever Joshua stung him he stood in front of him and let his hands go and Joshua let him do it. Joshua was hurting him but backing up so it has baffled me a bit, it was a bizarre performance. Joshua is a strange guy, he’s a proper f——- weirdo, he should have been putting the heat on him. After eight rounds he should have felt like he was down on the cards and started really having a go, he’s the unified heavyweight champion of the world.
“He needs to throw his hands. Joshua’s mentality has to change, lately he is in a safety-first mode, he is fighting weird. It’s good he is using more athleticism and boxing responsibly but being a big strong guy is what has worked for him, got him an Olympic gold medal and world titles so he just needs to have a f—— go. He was not hungry enough because when the chips are down and sh!t is against you, you have to have a go. And he did not want to have a go. He never tried to finish him off when he hurt him, it was madness.”
catherine · September 27, 2021 at 10:46 am
Scoop – I didn’t see the fight but all the comments here were very anti-AJ, maybe partly because he’s a Brit and they were disappointed in what they saw as his lack of effort. Something obviously went wrong there. We’ll see if there’s a rematch.
Re Laver Cup – I’ve never been interested. For me it’s just an exho, just a little glossier than most. There’s no narrative in these events and tennis needs a narrative. Tounaments provide that.
Scoop Malinowski · September 27, 2021 at 1:09 pm
Catherine, he for sure threw the fight, he barely threw any punches and the ones he did you can see he pushed them. no snap, no fury. AJ also threw the fight to Fatso Andy Ruiz in NY and then easily won the rematch. I believe it was done because Joshua is partner with his promoter Eddie Hearn with the Matchroom promoter operation, so he benefits by Uzyk becoming a big sellable star. Now Matchroom has more big events to promote and sell. For sure AJ will fight for real and win the rematch vs AJ.
Bill McGill · September 28, 2021 at 8:36 am
Candidly, I really don’t get the comments here on the format, even if I agree that the actual matches themselves this year were less compelling than years past and less compelling than the best 4 or so match-ups at the ATP Cup this year.
I think the format is the best in the tennis calendar. Match duration is extremely spectator friendly and usually results in high drama 3rd set TBs. Having the best players in the world play doubles also turns out to be the recipe for making people want to watch doubles. Shocker, I know. The surface (slow but low-ish bounce) produces the right duration rally lengths and rewards the most watchable strategies. The high resolution court means it’s also extremely watchable on TV, unlike a lot of day time matches at FO and SW19. And the matches will live on on Youtube for years, the way the night time AO finals do whereas the FO and SW19 finals can be difficult to watch.
You can say it’s just an exho all you like, but any real tennis fan can see with their own eyes the difference in play quality between an exho and the Laver Cup. Seems like an invalid point based on how you want the players to perceive it, and not an actual description of how the players actually played it.
I thought the first Laver Cup was absolutely phenomenal and so much better than the atrocious Davis Cup (which not even I bother to watch and I’m one of six people that have gone to the NY open). The 2017 and 2019 Laver Cups also just happened to have some of the best matches of the entire year. This year, that was not the case and I think you are letting that influence your opinion of the format. The Berretini/FA2 and Schwartzman/Rublev matches were both excellent, but all the other singles matches were execrable. Nobody wants to watch Opelka and Isner play singles. Kyrgios did not play well. Shapo performed poorly in his singles loss to Medvedev and Day 3 singles were not played. None of that is the fault of the tournament format.
This year, the ATP Cup happened to feature some of the best matches of the year. Medvedev/Zverev, Djoker/Shapo, Zverev/Shapo, but the final was lousy and the country format is a mistake. There’s like 100 ATP Cup matches versus a dozen+ Laver Cup matches and just look at how many of the ATP Cup matches were bad matches. Tennis is a global sport. Why do you want Mikhail Pervolarakis determining whether you get to see Tsitsipas play Medvedev? It’s stupid. It’s a bug, not a feature.
Scoop Malinowski · September 28, 2021 at 8:49 am
Bill McGill, Happy to see you like the Laver Cup. Just can’t match your enthusiasm the World vs Europe idea. I like when tennis determines one champion winner, this event does not. But if it was broken down to Asia, North America, Europe and South America, that would catch my interest more. Right now it’s more like two All Star team competing for a trophy which means nothing in the big picture. Have you ever watched Ryder Cup?
Bill McGill · September 28, 2021 at 12:21 pm
Ok, Laver Cup is team tennis and I can understand why someone might prefer regular tennis to team tennis. What I can’t understand preferring Davis Cup or ATP Cup to Laver Cup. They are both objectively worse.
Not a golfer and don’t watch golf, but based on my rudimentary understanding isn’t Ryder Cup basically the same thing as Laver Cup only U.S. versus Europe rather than World versus Europe? I can’t imagine your object to Laver Cup is that Canada and Kyrgios get to play with U.S. I don’t think a non-Aussie Asian has ever even played in Laver Cup. I think Anglophone Bros versus Euro trash is smart marketing and represents a cultural divide that actually exists on the ATP tour.
Scoop Malinowski · September 28, 2021 at 12:32 pm
Bill McGill, Hopman Cup was one of my favorite events of the year until they ended it. Wonderful fantastic team event. It often lacked big stars participating but I loved it anyway. The tennis was serious and intense too, especially the finals. I never saw any of the players looking at their phones or looking bored and pretending to look excited. The new Davis Cup format has ruined the event. Laver Cup to me just looks like an all star tennis weekend, players playing some matches that don’t count for much. They stage the exhibitions in cities which are void of pro tennis events so it’s good promotion of the sport. I’m not a golfer either, try to play a few times a year, or a fan of watching golf majors (too dull), but I think the Ryder Cup is the best thing about pro golf. The last edition of Ryder Cup three years ago was incredible to see how fired up and emotional and spirited each player was, it was like watching vintage Hewitt, Nadal in a decisive Davis Cup match, so much emotion and passion. I also rememmber the 1998 edition was another classic, I watched that whole weekend. Incredible show. Ten times better than Laver Cup