“These weeks help me bring my joy back”: calendar critic Alcaraz defends giving up a free week to the Laver Cup
Two years after telling a Laver Cup press conference that the calendar was “going to kill us”, Carlos Alcaraz explains in London why he gives a free week to the event anyway: team weeks are the ones that bring his joy back on court, and they help him for the tournaments that follow.
Carlos Alcaraz and Rod Laver, Laver Cup 2026 | © Getty Images / Laver Cup
Carlos Alcaraz was asked in Team Europe’s pre-event press conference at the O2 on Thursday why he was spending a rare free week at the Laver Cup when the length of the season has become the sport’s loudest internal argument, and when the same days could have been used for training or rest. His answer was that a team week is not more tennis, but a different kind of it.
“We are not used to playing team events. During the whole year we don’t have team events at all,” the Spaniard said. “For me especially, I love team events, spending time with them, having fun, as you could see the previous year, how much fun I had on the court and off the court.”
“It is a week that, as you said, I might be training or I might be resting. But these kind of weeks help me a lot to bring my joy back on the court, bring my joy back on playing tennis, and it helps me a lot for the next tournaments, when it is not team events.”
The question carried some history. Two years ago, almost to the day, Alcaraz used a Laver Cup press conference in Berlin to deliver the line that has framed the schedule debate ever since, saying of the calendar that “probably they are going to kill us in some way.” He was accused at the time of wanting it both ways, given that the Laver Cup awards no ranking points and sits outside the official calendar he was criticising. He has stood by the original comment since.
What he offered in London is the reconciliation of the two positions. The distinction he draws is not between official tournaments and exhibitions, but between playing alone and playing with a team. “This event is unique, because the players I’m usually fighting during the whole year, having them as a coach, sometimes it’s great,” he said. “You can see the matches and the tennis much better from outside. So when they approach me and tell me some things, I will try to obey and do whatever.”
His captain Yannick Noah made a version of the same case. “We love tennis, we have loved it since we were kids, and after the lights are gone we’re going to still play tennis,” the Frenchman said. “Most of us love football, and we miss sometimes the energy that you have in a team, in a locker room. That is what I discovered last year.”
He has played the event in each of the past two editions and has a 3-1 singles record in it, beating Ben Shelton and Taylor Fritz in 2024 and Francisco Cerundolo in 2025, with his only defeat coming against Fritz last year.
Team Europe, beaten 15-9 by Andre Agassi’s Team World in San Francisco last year, start their attempt to take the trophy back on Friday, with Casper Ruud opening against Francisco Cerúndolo at the O2.
