Team World Feels Sting of Defeat, But have no regrets

Team World held a slim lead at Laver Cup London 2026 at midday on Saturday, six matches in. The next four matches proved trickier, with Team Europe capturing two on Saturday and two on Sunday to win the Laver Cup 13-5.

“We are pretty close,” Team World’s Alex de Minaur said. “When you look at yesterday, we won two supers [10-point tiebreakers] and lost one with Taylor [Fritz] playing an epic match. We were very close. We were up against it from the get-go; we were the underdogs and put in a hell of a fight. A couple points here and there could have changed the whole tie.”

In a similar pattern to San Francisco 2025, Team World fell behind 3-1 on Friday, only to rebound with both matches in the day session on Saturday, including a dramatic De Minaur come-from-behind victory over two-time major winner Alexander Zverev. But unlike 2025, the Saturday evening session flashed blue, not red.

Carlos Alcaraz and Fritz reprised their 2025 contest, which Fritz won as part of a four-match Saturday sweep, staging one of the most epic Laver Cup performances in the event’s eight-year history. This year, Alcaraz avenged his 2025 loss to Fritz on Saturday, and Team Europe went on to close the 2026 ninth edition 13-5 on Sunday.

A spent Team World later faced the media, downcast but proud of their three-day effort.

“You’re watching these guys die out there,” said Team World captain Andre Agassi. “They’re showing more heart than I sometimes see in other real environments with things on the line. They’re there for each other. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Agassi refused to look back at the decisions made over the weekend.

“You make your bets on your team, you hope they give it everything they’ve got, you believe in them,” he said. “You want the best from them and are trying not to screw up anything. I think we got that. The ball could fall here, the ball could fall there. There were some epic battles out there. I think the sport won.”

Fritz said it was difficult being the away team on Sunday, especially since the lineup had to be submitted first with Team Europe matching the red team’s selections.

“Being in a position going into Day 3 where we need to win three out of four matches, and they get to pick the matches, it’s a tough ask,” he said. “Day 2 was a big opportunity for us. If we win either one of those, it gives us a look to win just two matches [Sunday].”

Fritz was especially hard on himself. “I contributed zero points,” he said. “I had a good match yesterday, but in the end, I still lost, and that is all that really matters at the end of the day, if you win or lose.”

Team World vice captain Patrick Rafter said late changes to the team lineup put his side in a difficult position when it came to forming doubles combinations. “We sort of lacked a bit of variation when it came to putting our doubles teams together,” he said.

The highlight of Team World’s on-court weekend was De Minaur’s comeback on Saturday, which accounted for two of the five points the team earned. The other points came from rookie Brandon Nakashima defeating Jakub Mensik in a third-set tiebreaker on Friday for one point and Tien defeating Flavio Cobolli in his first-ever Laver Cup match on Saturday, earning two points.

“It was amazing, the team atmosphere, and the environment which we all get to play in with so many tennis legends a part of it and having all these guys’ support on the bench,” Nakashima said. “It’s unlike any experience I have had before.”

Team World featured Laver Cup veterans Fritz, De Minaur and Francisco Cerundolo, along with a trio of rookies in Tien, Nakashima and Alexander Bublik.

Team Europe now leads the overall competition 6-3 as the spotlight turns to 2027 and to Team World’s host site, Los Angeles.

“I am just motivated to come back and do better next year,” Fritz said.