Despite all the fancy packaging and heavy promotion, the Laver Cup is the most boring tournament in ATP history. It lacks the energy, tension, nerves, raw unscripted emotion of any normal tournament, amateur or pro. The whole World vs Europe rivalry does not work.
Tennis trying to manufacture artificial rivalries is a failure. Perhaps the controlled system cannot generate any true rivalries naturally, organically. But that’s the only way they can happen. They have to spring up naturally and evolve naturally. Sinner vs Carlos and Laver Cup seem contrived, strategized and choreographed for business purposes.
If there was a bright spot of this weekend’s competition it was the presence of the voice and soul of the sport Andre Agassi, who made his debut as a captain.
The inside word is the Laver Cup is struggling to match the massive success of it’s imitation model, the hugely popular Ryder Cup for golf, USA vs Europe, which will be contested this weekend on Long Island, NY. Despite huge investment funding from USTA and ATP (rumored to be $6m each), the Laver Cup is showing dwindling profits.
For the record, Agassi’s World Team won when Fritz beat Zverev in two sets.
There was some real tennis played this weekend – American Michael Zheng won his second Challenger title in Columbus, Ohio, besting Martin Damm Jr. in three sets. Jan Choinski beat Vik Koprivia in Austria 75 64. Moez Echargui won his second career ATP Challenger in St. Tropez by beating Dan Added 63 64. And 23 year old Emilio Nava won his fourth Challenger this year in Argentina vs Barrena. Nava is ranked a career high 100 right now. Finally, Franco Agamenone won in Romania vs top seed Jay Clarke 63 64.
Also in Leonia, NJ, the Andrew Kim Memorial Tennis tournament was contested at Overpeck Park. The Team of Dave Schwartz and Dave Mirra beat Felipe and Pablo Gutarra in the Men’s Open Division final 46 75 61.
Andrew Kim Tennis · ATP Challenger · Laver Cup
Scoop Malinowski · September 22, 2025 at 9:17 am
I love everything about tennis, pro, amateur, junior tournaments, college tennis but Laver Cup strikes me as absolutely boring. The players seem like they don’t really want to be there but the money is too good to turn down. There is no electricity, no nothing that real tennis has. It seems like a brilliant business model by the former God of tennis and his manager, which has an interesting concept at first but it has flopped. I don’t see it going on much longer. No matter how much money is invested, the players can’t fake it into a Grand Slam or 1000.
Scoop Malinowski · September 22, 2025 at 9:27 am
Pavvy G
@pavyg
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4h
Laver Cup is like a get together of the establishment on and off court, trying to show everyone how much fun the sport is and how united it is.
It is however just another example of everything that’s wrong in Tennis, a few wealthy male players getting even wealthier.
Boring.
Scoop Malinowski · September 24, 2025 at 9:29 am
Swish 🍒 Tennis
@Zwxsh
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1h
The Laver Cup is said to have lost $3.3m between 2023-2024, with Roger Federer possibly balancing the accounts out of his own pocket.
The tournament used to generate $3.5m profit per year in the early years.
Do you think the Laver Cup will survive long-term?