The third edition of the Laver Cup, the tournament that faces a selection of European tennis stars against another from the rest of the world, begins this Friday at the Palexpo in Geneva, with the combined Old Continent, headed by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer , as a great favorite.
Europe won, both in the inaugural competition of 2017 in Prague, as last year in Chicago, and the team led by Bjorn Borg starts in principle with many options to repeat the victory in a tournament that since this year is part of the ATP Tour , although it will still not give ranking points to the participants.
Federer and Nadal, who did not participate last year due to injury, are accompanied by the Austrian Dominic Thiem , the German Alexander Zverev , and two debutants, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Italian Fabio Fognini .
The selection of the rest of the world, led by Borg's eternal rival and old friend, John McEnroe , is headed by the American John Isner , who as his compatriot Jack Sock and the Australian Nick Kyrgios , also present in Geneva, has not failed to None of the three dates with the tournament.
On the other hand, the Canadian Milos Raonic and the American Taylor Fritz debut with that trio, while another Canadian tennis player, Denis Shapovalov , returns to this Europe-World duel after having participated in the first edition of Prague.
Regarding the ATP ranking, Europe's favoritism is absolute, considering that the worst placed on that list by the European team (Fognini, 11th) is above the best of the rival team (Isner, 20th), although At the end of the season the forces of many are fair and the numbers do not count as much.
The three-set matches, which are played until Sunday at the Exhibition Palace (Palexpo) in Geneva, an installation for 17,000 spectators next to the local airport, begin this Friday with a duel between Thiem and Shapovalov, which will continue the clashes Sock-Fognini and Tsitsipas-Fritz.
The last match of the day, the doubles match, will measure the couple formed by Federer and Zverev with the Sock-Shapovalov duet, so Nadal will be the only European who will not play matches this Friday, and will wait for his debut on Saturday with an opponent not yet decided in a draw.
The tournament, inspired by the Ryder Cup of golf, follows a peculiar scoring system in which the games won on the first day are worth one point, those of the second two, and three in the third and final, when the winner will be declared the team that reaches or exceeds 13 points, after nine individual matches and three doubles.
The Laver Cup will serve to see Nadal again after his victory in the US Open, which gave him the 19th Grand Slam of his career, and perhaps in his last official matches before his wedding with Francisca Perelló, on October 19 in Pollença (Mallorca), unless in the week prior to the link go to the Shanghai Masters 1000, still unconfirmed.
He and Federer, sharing equipment, "park" for a few days the competition - not official but present in the minds of many fans - to see who is the best tennis player of all time, since the Swiss only has one Grand Slam more that the Spanish, not forgetting that the Serbian Novak Djokovic also stalks with 16 titles.
Baptized in honor of the Australian tennis legend Rod Laver, who will be a luxury spectator in Geneva, the Europa-Rest of the World tournament has Federer himself among the organizing and sponsoring partners, who has managed to bring the competition to his own in this edition House.
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