The Laver Cup in Boston will be a first glimpse into a not too distant future for the tennis world.
For more than a decade, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic set the scene and divided the titles at the four Grand Slam tournaments with very few exceptions.
But the three musketeers of the tennis cosmos are getting on in years and are missing from the show event on the east coast of the USA.
Federer and Nadal are fighting for their possibly last return after operations in rehab, Djokovic is not due to exhaustion after his bitter defeats at the Olympics against Alexander Zverev and at the US Open against the Russian Daniil Medvedev and the dream of the Golden Slam that broke with it included.
Favorite role for Team Europe
And so the duel between Team Europe and Team World this weekend is also a first indicator of whether the next generation around Zverev and his competitors are also able to inspire the fans, as Federer, Nadal and Djokovic about have done for many years.
The game will be played from Friday to Sunday (from 7:00 p.m. live on Eurosport), three singles and one doubles, each day more points are awarded for victories.
And as in the first three comparisons of the invitation tournament, which fell victim to the corona pandemic last year, this time too the favorite role is clearly with Team Europe including captain Björn Borg.
Zverev will play an important role within the European team.
The German number one is still waiting for his first title at one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, but after winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the 24-year-old finally belongs to the elite of tennis.
"This is simply the best Zverev I've seen so far," said Boris Becker in the Eurosport podcast "The Yellow from the Ball", after Zverev's semi-final at the US Open in five sets against Djokovic.
"If he just carries on like this, then for me he will be the next member of the young guard, whose turn it is to win a Grand Slam."
Zverev himself is ambitious before the start of the Laver Cup: "We are all here to win," said the 24-year-old from Hamburg, who won the trophy in the three previous editions of the team competition based on the Ryder Cup for golfers He was allowed to lift heights - and mostly played a key role in this.
"I have so many incredible memories of the event," said Zverev, "especially the decisive match in Geneva 2019".
Medvedev has been one step further than Zverev since New York. The Russian leads Team Europe in Boston and, together with Zverev, wants to lead it to a fourth victory in the fourth edition of the prestige competition, which is taking place in parallel in the US state of Wisconsin this year. Even without the big three, Zverev and the other members of the European team are back in the race as favorites, but the world selection senses their chance.
The hopes of the captain of the world team, John McEnroe, rest especially on the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, who last stormed into the semifinals at the US Open and threw Zverev out in the round of 16 at Wimbledon. “It's my first Laver Cup, I'm really excited. Hopefully we can put on a good show and get the first win for Team Welt, ”said the Canadian, number eleven in the world of top players at the challenger.
Federer, Nadal and Djokovic will follow the action from a distance.
The absence is particularly bitter for the 40-year-old Federer, as the Swiss is even co-organizer of the spectacle through his agency TEAM8.
Zverev and the other players will try to fill in the big gaps.
At the traditional photo shoot in LoPresti Park in front of the Boston skyline, they already cut a good figure in black suits.