Alcaraz saved for singles: Europe chose a pair who had never played together, and it won them the Laver Cup
Team Europe won the Laver Cup 13-5 by sending out a pair who had never played together. Flavio Cobolli and Jakub Mensik beat Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz 7-5, 6-3 in Sunday’s opening doubles, with Carlos Alcaraz rested because, said Tim Henman, “he’s feeling it in his body”, and Alexander Zverev finished the job against Learner Tien.
Team Europe winning the Laver Cup 2026
Team Europe’s Laver Cup was decided by a selection call. On Sunday morning at the O2, leading 7-5 and needing two wins from four matches, Yannick Noah and Tim Henman sent out Flavio Cobolli and Jakub Mensik, a pairing that had never played a match together, in the first match of the day, worth three points. They beat Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz 7-5, 6-3, and the Cup was effectively gone.
The scoreboard tells the shape of it. Europe led 3-1 after Friday, when only Brandon Nakashima’s win over Mensik interrupted them. Team World then won Saturday’s first two matches, Learner Tien over Cobolli and de Minaur over Alexander Zverev, to lead 5-3, before Carlos Alcaraz saved two match points against Fritz to level it at 5-5 and Casper Ruud and Zverev won the night doubles for 7-5.
Sunday’s opener took Europe to 10-5, and Zverev beat Tien 7-6 (3), 6-3 for 13-5, with the last two singles unplayed.
Mensik, who had been on the wrong end of the same arithmetic twelve months earlier, knew exactly what the overnight lead was worth. “Compared to last year, it was the opposite. We needed three matches to win, they needed two,” he said. “It’s of course a better position to have.”
Certainly for Carlos, he’s feeling it in his body, so to prioritise the singles for him
Henman explained the call afterwards, and it was as much about who did not play. “We’ve had a really busy last five or six days. You take into account the physical nature of the surface and how demanding the matches are,” the vice-captain said. “Certainly for Carlos, he’s feeling it in his body, so to prioritise the singles for him. With Flavio and Jakub ready to go, it was a good combination. With Fritz and de Minaur having to play singles as well, we would have been happy to keep them out there as long as possible.”
The risk showed early. “We played for the first time, so we needed some time to get to know each other a little bit on the court. The start was a little bit tricky, but the longer the match was going, the more comfortable we felt,” Mensik said. “Even if we were a breaker down, I believed in us that we had opportunities on the return, and in doubles anything can happen.”
Cobolli’s best feeling
Cobolli had been waiting for the assignment. “I really like pressure when I play tennis, so we knew since the first day that today counts three and not one. You have to be prepared every day to play on this condition,” the Italian said. Beaten by Tien the day before, he had his own reason to want it: “I was feeling bad yesterday about my loss, so it’s great for me to win this match and bring the energy up.”
It also handed Zverev, beaten by de Minaur on Saturday, the easiest possible brief. “We had three chances to close it out in the singles, and especially with Carlos playing after me, that gives me a lot of confidence, gives me a little bit of freedom to play,” the German said on court. “But it was still an incredibly tough match, credit to Learner as well.”
We sort of lacked a bit of variation when we came to putting our doubles teams together
Team World saw the same hinge from the other side. “They get to pick matchups on Day 3, so being in a position where going into Day 3 we need to win three out of the four matches when they get to pick the matches, it’s just a tough ask,” Fritz said. Andre Agassi called the Sunday scheduling “a brutal advantage, and we still almost overcame it”, while Patrick Rafter pointed at his own pairings: after losing two players in the fortnight before the event, “we sort of lacked a bit of variation when we came to putting our doubles teams together”.
Zverev, who has now played this event more often than anyone, was left with the answer that explains why the selection mattered at all. “Winning as a team. There’s no better feeling in sports, and we don’t have enough of it in tennis.”
