Andy Roddick's take on Team World's defeat in the Laver Cup

Former world number one Andy Roddick has pointed out that one of the primary reasons behind the Team World's recent defeat in the Laver Cup was down to poor team selection on the final day. The two-team competition ended on Sunday in Germany, Berlin, where Team Europe came out on top in a tense battle with a score of 13-11 and reclaimed the title after a gap of two years. 

On the last day of the match, Team World had an advantage as they had to win just two out of four matches to lift the title. However, they ended up winning just one and lost three, including the doubles clash where American pair of Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe came second-best against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Norway’s Casper Ruud in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 7-6.

Former world number one Roddick was recently quoted in a report where he expressed his opinion about the team selection of Team World on the last day of the contest. The one-time Grand Slam winner was of the opinion that the Team World should have gone with both left-handed players in the match against Alcaraz and Ruud. Roddick took the reference of Shelton and Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo’s impressive performance a day before against the pair of Ruud and Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, where they came out on top in straight sets with a score of 6-1, 6-2.

“A few questions maybe around the doubles lineup,” he said. “I probably would have gone with the lefties again, Tabilo and Shelton, and they flipped the doubles on the last day against Alcaraz and Ruud when Ruud had consistently proven before, when he played with Tsitsipas against Shelton and Tabilo, that he actually couldn’t take any returns early against a lefty. Shelton made himself bigger than he actually normally is. I don’t know why all of a sudden you would give them a righty serve with a gettable second serve with Frances in that next match.”