SAN FRANCISCO — The 2025 Laver Cup kicked off on Friday night, drawing the first of five huge crowds — which is expected to result in a grand weekend total of some 82,000 tennis fans — to the Chase Center.
Team Europe cleaned up in this first session, winning both of the singles matches to take a 2-0 point total over Team World (aka, every place that is not Europe) in this eighth annual tournament named in honor of Australian tennis legend Rod Laver.
The team that racks up 13 points is declared the champion. Thus far, Team Europe has been able to accomplish that feat much more frequently than Team World — and holds an all-time 5-2 edge in Laver Cup play.
Having won the trophy in Berlin last year, Team Europe picked up where it left off as world No. 12 Casper Ruud (Norway) defeated No. 60 Reilly Opelka (U.S.) in a very competitive match to start the afternoon session.
Team Europe stayed on course in the second half of the doubleheader as No. 17 Jakub Mensik (Czechoslovakia) triumphed over another American — No. 32 Alex Michelsen — in a topsy-turvy match.
The Michigan-born, Florida-raised Opelka got off to a really strong start as Ruud really struggled early on to make any kind of a dent into the American’s service games. The 26-year-old Norwegian would basically blink and it would be 40-0. On the flip side, Ruud wasn’t getting any easy points on his serve and faced two break points in his very first service game.
Yet, Ruud just kept right on playing good defense — racing around Laver Cup’s black hardcourt — and somehow managing to return serves that reached 130 mph. Then, during the fifth game of the first set, Ruud finally got a chance to break and managed to push ahead on the scoreboard, thanks with a backhand winner.
Ruud quickly solidified the break, upping the ante on his own service game while focusing on turning defense into offense as he kept his nose out in front and finished off the first set 6-4.
Ruud made a big push at the start of the second set, looking to basically stick a fork in the match by winning the 28-year-old American’s initial service game. But the hard-serving Opelka withstood the charge.
They’d trade body blows as the match continued, yet neither one could deliver a knockout punch as the match stayed on serve. Each player saw small windows to break — or, at least, get into a position to break — but it turned out that a tiebreaker would be necessary to decide the Set 2.
Ruud struck first in the breaker, going up on the American 3-1 on his way to a final 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) score.
Team Europe 1, Team World 0.
Alex Michelsen of Team World returns a shot against Jakub Mensik of Team Europe during day one of Laver Cup 2025 at Chase Center on Sept. 19, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images for Laver Cup)
The second match, between Mensik and Michelsen, was barely even competitive during the first set — with the 20-year-old Czech dominating in basically every facet of the sport, and the 21-year-old Orange County native looking like he was out of his league.
Mensik broke Michelsen twice on the way to a 4-0 lead, thanks to a number of good backhand shots, and really was never in any danger of losing during a massively lopsided first set that wasn’t even as close as the 6-1 score might indicate.
Yet, it was a different story — and seemingly a whole different player — in the second set, as Michelsen showed the kind of deft serving touch, wide-ranging defense and circus-shot-making ability that has commentators so excited about his future in American tennis.
They were still on serve going into the eighth game of the second set, before Mensik finally broke serve to take a commanding 5-3 lead. Yet, he wouldn’t be able to hold it as the American broke right back. The level of tennis was simply off the charts as the set approached the finish line, with Michelsen basically lifting his game to match that of Mensik, on the way to forcing a second set tiebreak — which the American ended up winning decisively, 7-3.
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With one set belonging to each man, we would need the first “Laver Breaker” of the tournament to decide matters. It’s a 10-point tiebreaker, with the additional caveat that you must win by two points.
Michelsen served to start this final breaker and ended up double-faulting. He’d then go on to lose the next three points, pushing Mensik up 4-0. The American ended up making it competitive in the later stages of the breaker, but it wasn’t enough to avoid falling 10-8.
Team Europe 2, Team World 0.
Both Michelsen and Mensik were set to return to play in the night session, partnering up with world No. 4 Taylor Fritz (USA) and No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz (Spain), respectively, for a doubles match.
The Laver Cup continues in San Francisco through Sunday. Visit lavercup.com for details.
