SAN FRANCISCO — The 2025 Laver Cup was a phenomenal success in its West Coast debut, drawing huge crowds for each of its five sessions on its way to ringing up more than 82,000 fans in attendance over the weekend.
The large crowds set an attendance record for the Laver Cup, which was celebrating its eighth year of existence during its three-day stop at Chase Center.
Equally significant, the tournament had tens of thousands of fans very excited about the chance to experience professional tennis back in Bay Area again. And certainly everybody was buzzing about the see the current face of men’s tennis — world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz — competing in multiple matches at Chase.
“It’s amazing for the people of San Francisco to get to see him,” Laver Cup co-founder Roger Federer said during an on-site interview on the “Served with Andy Roddick” podcast on Saturday.
The buzz was so strong around the event that it had many thinking how great it would be if Northern California could once again host a regular professional tennis event. Locals haven’t seen a regular tour event seen since the WTA’s Silicon Valley Classic — a tournament that saw the great Billie Jean King capture its first title in 1971 — was held for the final time in 2022 on the San Jose State University Campus.
One well-known commentator even suggested the Laver Cup should stop operating as a traveling tournament — with a different host city each year — and just set up shop annually at Chase Center.
“Just make it the permanent home,” Roddick said to cheers of approval from Bay Area fans.
The Laver Cup is a three-day battle between two teams consisting of six players each — Team Europe and Team World (aka, everyplace not called Europe) — both of which fielded strong lineups this year.
The big draw on Team World was top-ranked American, world No. 5 Taylor Fritz, who was joined by No. 8 Alex de Minaur (Australia), No. 21 Francisco Cerundolo (Argentina), No. 32 Alex Michelsen (U.S.), No. 42 João Fonseca (Brazil) and No. 60 Reilly Opelka (U.S.). The Team World Captain was American tennis legend Andre Agassi, who won eight majors during his career, and the Vice Captain was Pat Rafter, a winner of back-to-back U.S. Open singles titles in the late ‘90s.
Alcaraz, of course, was the must-see player on Team Europe — especially since he was fresh off capturing another U.S. Open singles title earlier this month.
Alcaraz was joined on Team Europe by world No. 3 Alexander Zverev (Germany), No. 11 Holger Rune (Denmark), No. 12 Casper Ruud (Norway), No. 17 Jakub Mensik (Czech Republic) and No. 25 Flavio Cobolli (Italy). Yannick Noah, a Frenchman who won the French Open in 1983, served as Team Captain and British tennis legend Tim Henman was the Vice Captain.
Team Europe got off to a strong start on Friday’s Day 1 , taking three of the four matches– including a marquee doubles match between Alcaraz/Mensik and Fritz/Michelsen — over Team World.
Unfortunately for Team Europe, however, match wins only count for one point on Day 1 in the ascending scoring system at this tournament, which was founded by Roger Federer and others in 2017 in honor of Australian tennis legend Rod Laver. That left Team Europe with only a 3-1 lead after the first day — and a very long path ahead in trying to reach the 13 points required to secure the Cup.
Team Europe found the downside of this scoring system on Day 2 — as match wins doubled in value — as Team World was able to dramatically jump ahead. Team World swept all four of the matches, which included Fritz’s first-ever victory over Alcaraz, and ended Saturday with a 9-3 lead — and totally in the driver’s seat going into the final day Sunday.
Team World, however, would strike first on Sunday, as the doubles team of Alcaraz and Ruud triumphed over Michelsen and Opelka. The first set was close as can be, with the two teams staying on serve all the way into a tie-breaker that Team World eventually won. Yet, the two Americans ran out of gas in the second, resulting in a final score of 7-6 (7-4) 6-1.
And, like that, Team Europe was right back in the tournament — trailing 9-6 to Team World — thanks to the win that earned it three points.
Team Europe Captain Noah would roll out Mensik in the next match to try and claw a bit closer to Team World. Yet, Mensik couldn’t quite keep pace with de Minaur, who managed to play the big points a bit better on his way to a 6-3, 6-4 win.
Watching de Minaur — who also triumphed in a singles match early on Friday and then returned a few hours later for a winning doubles campaign in the evening — makes one feel like this 26-year-old Australian will win majors.
The third match of the day brought back crowd favorite Alcaraz, who had just won in doubles a couple of hours earlier. The Spaniard absolutely flew out of the gate, going up 5-0 on Cerundolo before the Argentinian would finally win a service game and then, adding a little twist to script, breaking the world No. 1 on his next service game. Then Alcaraz declared enough and brought the set to a 6-2 close. It was a similar story in set 2, which ended 6-1 in favor of Alcaraz.
With Team World leading 12-9, Zverev and Fritz were to battle it out in the fourth match of the day, which was set to begin in early Sunday evening.
If the American triumphed, Team World would clinch this year’s Laver Cup.
If the German came out on top, the two teams would be all knotted up at 12 points each. Then — for the first time ever — the Laver Cup would have to be decided by a final overtime doubles match, which is played as a regular set with ad scoring and a potential tiebreaker.
This story will be updated online with final results.
