Federer gives the Laver Cup to team Europe after epic

By
Mark Hall
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The Laver Cup could not have a better beginning. 

Even if Team Europe looked to be the hot favorite to win the competition, the unique format of the event helped to make everyone glued to it till the very end.

What happened?

Team Europe was commanding a sizeable 9-3 lead after the first 2 days, but since each match played on the last day had a 3 points “value”, with 4 matches to go everything could happen.  

The World team had a fantastic start with Isner and Sock defeating Berdych and Cilic 7-6 (5) 7-6 (8) putting the overall scoreline to an edgy 9-6. Then, Zverev dismissed Querrey 6-4 6-4 to give more space to Team Europe (12-6), but with Nadal losing to Isner 7-5 7-6 (1) (12-9) everything had to go down to the last match between Federer and Kyrgios that was a sheer epic.

Federer – Kyrgios

Nick was 100% motivated to make it even (12-12) to start in great fashion and win the opener 6-4. Roger didn’t want to go down, and he put all his effort (and many ‘come on’s) to win the second set following a thrilling tie-break after Kyrgios saved 3 consecutive set points (from 3-6).  

The match tiebreak (the third set would have been decided by a 10-points tiebreak) was epic. The Australian was in full command after he was leading 5-2 and on serve. At that point, Roger had to use all his experience to get back in the breaker giving extremely softballs to Nick that was struggling a bit with his nerves.

Once again Kyrgios was in full command and things looked good for him when he had 2 serves to play while leading 8-7. Roger got a minibreak, but then he had to face a match point when he was on serve (9-8). Kyrgios failed to convert the match point after blasting a forehand that was long for inches. That was it… Roger won the following 2 points to give the Laver Cup to his team (15-9). The Swiss Maestro was jubilant while Nick was in tears soon after the demise. The final result was 4-6 7-6 (8) 11-9.

It couldn’t be better for the fans.