A look back at Laver Cup 2024 as awesome Alcaraz provides Team Europe heroics in much lauded team showdown

The 2024 Laver Cup was one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, in history, so let’s recap what happened and how Team Europe ended up winning.

The Laver Cup is a pretty unique event where players from Europe take on players from the rest of the world. It’s a team event that lasts for three days and features 12 matches overall. Four of those are doubles matches, while the rest are singles matches.

Each day features three singles matches and one doubles match, with the matches carrying points. Day one offers one point, day two offers two points, and day three offers three points. The winning team needs to get to 13 points, and it was Team Europe who ultimately won 13-11. This was the second time in the seven-year-long history of the Laver Cup that we got that result. Much like the Geneva event, it came down to the last match, which Team Europe won to secure the overall victory.

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It was one of the most interesting Laver Cup events ever because we got some pretty surprising results. We’re going to go over all of that in our recap below.

The past two editions of the event were won by Team World, including last year’s one, which was a proper shellacking. To counter that, Team Europe put together a rather impressive roster featuring Carlos Alcaraz, who, up until a few weeks ago, was considered the best player in the world. Besides Alcaraz, they also brought Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, Casper Ruud, Grigor Dimitrov, and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Team World featured Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, Alejandro Tabilo, Francisco Cerundolo, and Thanasi Kokkinakis.

The score after day one: 2-2

Day One 

It was a rather respectable team, and they nearly won, so let’s take a look at how it happened. On day one, we had four interesting matchups. The first one saw Casper Ruud take on Francisco Cerundolo, and even though the Norwegian was heavily favoured to win the match, he didn’t, as Cerundolo produced a really stunning effort to win 6-4, 6-4. The second match that day was between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Thanasi Kokkinakis.

It was a rematch of the US Open match we had recently, but ultimately we got a different result. Despite Kokkinakis easily outplaying Tsitsipas in New York, the Greek player won this time around. He played some of his best tennis in recent weeks to easily beat Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-1, 6-4, which was a pretty important win for Tsitsipas but also for his team.

In the next match, we saw Grigor Dimitrov take on Alejandro Tabilo, and the Bulgarian played some pretty solid tennis to beat him 7-6(4), 7-6(2). Dimitrov actually injured himself in the second set but was able to finish the match; however, he wouldn’t step out onto the court again because of the injury, which was a big problem for Team World.

The final match of day one was the doubles match, and we had Alexander Zverev pairing up with Carlos Alcaraz and taking on Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton. The Americans were able to win that one 7-6(5), 6-4, making the score after the opening day 1-1. It was a pretty tightly contested day, with the score being tied after the opening day, making each of the upcoming matches even more important.

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Day Two 

The second day opened with a pretty fascinating matchup between Daniil Medvedev and Frances Tiafoe. The American had never beaten Medvedev before, so it was a pretty tough matchup for him, but he had been playing solid tennis lately, as opposed to Medvedev, who has been very shaky in recent weeks. The Russian did play better at the start of the match, taking the opening set 6-3, but Tiafoe battled back to win the second set 6-4 and finally the match tiebreak 10-5. It was a hugely important win for Team World but also for Tiafoe, who is certainly proving to be in really solid form to finish the year. Medvedev, once again, was pretty underwhelming.

The next match saw Carlos Alcaraz play against Ben Shelton in what was the most fascinating matchup of the day. It was a pretty solid match from the Spaniard, who outplayed Shelton without too many problems, tying up the score overall. Alcaraz showed a level much better than what we saw in New York from him, and that was one of the things fans were looking to see happen. The next match was between Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz, and just like in New York a few years ago, Fritz proved better. The German was once again a bit too passive when he needed to be, and Fritz was able to overwhelm him. The American is certainly playing at a very solid level, and he was able to win that one 6-4, 7-5.

The final match was a doubles one, with Stefanos Tsitsipas pairing up with Casper Ruud to take on Ben Shelton and Alejandro Tabilo. It wasn’t even close, as the American-Chilean combo easily won that match 6-1, 6-2, to give Team World the big lead after the second day.

Score after second day: 8-4

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Day Three 

So, ahead of the final day, we had Team Europe in a pretty tricky spot because they needed to win three of the four matches to win the competition. Team World only needed two of those because, with six points, they would clear the 13-point threshold. Team Europe needed three to make it 13, so each of these matches was hugely important. Unlike the previous days, the doubles came first, and Team World sent out Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton. They were heavily favoured against Casper Ruud and Carlos Alcaraz, but they failed to win that match as the Europeans played a really superb one. The final score of that match was 6-2, 7-6(6).

That made it 8-7 for Team World, making the next one a pretty huge match. Daniil Medvedev once again suited up for Europe, while Ben Shelton went straight away to play singles. The Russian was able to win a pretty close opening set 8-6 in the tiebreak, but Shelton didn’t give up. He battled and ultimately won the second set 7-5. A match tiebreak followed, and the relentless Shelton won that 10-7, giving Team World the 11-7 lead. They needed only one more win, while Team Europe needed to win both matches.

That set up a superbly exciting finish because if Team Europe won the next match, we would get a winner-takes-it-all match between Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz. Alexander Zverev got the nod against Frances Tiafoe because he’s been great against him in the past. The head-to-head was 7-1 before that match, but it wasn’t going very well. Tiafoe won the opening set 7-6(5) and was up a break in the second set. He was basically a few games away from winning that match and ultimately winning the competition for Team World.

Carlos Alcaraz provided the glory for Team Europe.

He failed to win the second set as Zverev had a miraculous fightback. The German then went on to outplay Tiafoe in the match tiebreak 10-5 to win the match, making it 11-10 for Team World overall. It meant that the final match of the event would decide who won it, and it would be the best players of each team: Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz.

Lots of people expected this match to be very close because Fritz had been playing super solidly lately and Alcaraz had been shaky. It was supposed to be a spectacle, but unfortunately, it wasn’t because Fritz didn’t really show up. Alcaraz was super solid, doing everything that he does well. He even served well, which was a welcome addition at this event. Fritz was pretty lacklustre overall and never really got into the match properly, allowing the Spaniard to escape 6-2, 7-5. The final score of the event ended up being 13-11 for Team Europe, who, after two years of losing, finally won the competition again. It’s the fifth time overall that they have won the event, and it was mostly thanks to Alcaraz, who delivered some crucial points.

The final score: 13-11 for Europe.

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Takeaways 

There are a couple of things we can take away from this Laver Cup. First of all, Carlos Alcaraz is back to playing super solid tennis. As odd as it looked in previous weeks, the Spaniard is back to playing at a solid level.

Stefanos Tsitsipas showed once more that he still has good tennis in himself, but the upcoming weeks will show whether he can sustain it. Daniil Medvedev kept struggling at this event, losing two singles matches, even though he could have won both.

The gap between Europe and the rest of the world is slowly closing; the parity in tennis has never been bigger. Some players do stick out, but for the most part, good tennis is being played all over the world, which is very good for the sport.

And finally, we have to say that the Laver Cup as an event is here to stay. It’s a fascinating competition, popular among both players and fans, so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.