Three match tie-breaks, two match points saved: Alcaraz drags Europe level at 5-5
Three matches, three Laver Breakers, and a Laver Cup back to level at 5-5. Learner Tien beat Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 2-6, 10-7 and Alex de Minaur recovered from a set down to beat Alexander Zverev 2-6, 7-6 (7), 11-9, before Carlos Alcaraz saved two match points to beat Taylor Fritz 6-3, 4-6, 13-11.
Carlos Alcaraz, Laver Cup 2026 | © Getty Images / Laver Cup
Every match on Saturday afternoon at the O2 went to a Laver Breaker, and by the end of the third of them the Laver Cup had been handed back to the middle. Team Europe and Team World are level at 5-5, after Carlos Alcaraz saved two match points to beat Taylor Fritz 6-3, 4-6, 13-11 in a deciding tie-break that ran to 24 points.
Team World had arrived at the arena 3-1 down and won the first two matches of the day to lead 5-3, both in the same manner. Learner Tien beat Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 2-6, 10-7, then Alex de Minaur came from a set and a level of trouble he did not disguise to beat Alexander Zverev 2-6, 7-6 (7), 11-9.
Tien’s win was built on the lesson Day 1 had taught him from the bench. “The biggest thing is just knowing that no scoreline is really safe,” the 20-year-old said. “Maybe if you’re down a set and 5-0, it’s over. Most of the scorelines that you’re going to be playing through, you’re still in the match no matter what the score is. Matches can just turn very fast.”
His own did. “I thought I started off well. He definitely changed things up a bit in the second, started taking a little more pace off the ball, started not giving me as much to work with, and I was struggling a bit with that,” Tien said. “But I recovered well for the third set, and it was kind of a dog fight in the third.”
Andre Agassi’s reading of it was the most technical answer any captain has given this weekend. “Cobolli got off to a slower start. He was trying to do damage to Learner, and Learner was absorbing and controlling most of the action,” the Team World captain said.
De Minaur’s escape
“Second set, balls got heavier and chewed up and harder to penetrate, so he backed off that and started rolling it up. Learner learned today, because he went from trying to take unnecessary risk to just digging in when it mattered most, and counting on the intangible in tennis, which is your persistence and your ability to stay present.”
De Minaur’s escape was the more improbable of the two. “I was in a fair bit of strife, and it was looking quite bleak,” the Australian said. “Sascha came out of the blocks firing, hitting the ball at a very high level with a lot of pace from both wings, and I was struggling to find a lot of inroads.” The instruction from the bench was to survive and irritate: “Do my best to get stuck in there, try to change it up as much as I could. I managed to get a little bit more returns in play, change my return position, gave different looks, and slowly crawled my way into the match.”
It also produced the day’s only controversy. At match point in the deciding breaker, a let was called when the screen moved, handing Zverev another first serve. “The rules are you’ve got to play two, but obviously I would have loved to play that point with a second serve instead of giving him another first serve,” de Minaur said.
That’s in his right. He can bounce the ball as many times as he wants.
“It was unfortunate, but I tried my best for it not to rattle me and kind of stay in the moment, and I managed to pick the right way, and it ended up working out. So, happy days. If it hadn’t worked out, then maybe I would have a different opinion on it.” On Zverev’s lengthy ball-bouncing, he was flatter still: “That’s in his right. He can bounce the ball as many times as he wants.”
That is now three wins over Zverev in two years at the Laver Cup and at the United Cup, and it delighted his vice-captain. “Bloody hope it is. It’s massive,” Patrick Rafter said, asked what beating one of the two highest-profile players in the field was worth. “The way he came out, he obviously showed that he was the No. 1 player or becoming No. 1 player in the world, and he wanted to stick it to us, and how dare you beat us last year. And you just saw the fight of Alex. He thrives on it.”
Then came Alcaraz, and the day’s balance changed again. His 13-11 in the third is the longest breaker of the weekend and the second time in two days that Europe’s No. 1 has been the one closing the session out.
The format, as de Minaur put it, does the rest. “Here, the Laver Cup, it is a little bit different, because ultimately you’ve got to win a set and a super, right, and it’s a lot more of a coin toss,” he said. “But I just thrive in these types of environments. Whenever you get to play for a little bit more than just yourself, it brings the kind of extra energy.”
The night doubles, Casper Ruud and Zverev against Alexander Bublik and Brandon Nakashima, is worth another two points, and Sunday’s three matches are worth three points each, with 13 needed to win the Cup. Tien, for one, has the arithmetic in mind. “It’s very important to peak later in the event,” he said. “Days 2 and 3 are the most important score-wise.”
