The Laver Cup returns to England later this year, as London plays host to the world’s most intriguing exhibition tennis event.
Although, that is a title that the tournament tries to steer clear of.
Regardless, it remains a hugely entertaining competition that certainly inspires new fans to watch tennis, pitting a handful of the sport’s best male players against one another in a unique format akin to golf’s Ryder Cup.
With Team Europe hosting this year, next year it will flip back, with Team World to do the honours. However, it seems somewhat gratuitous to brand them as such, when Team World seemingly equates to Team North America.
Laver Cup announces Los Angeles as 2027 host city
It has now been announced that Los Angeles will be the next host city for the Laver Cup, marking a fifth time in as many iterations where Team World has hosted, and a North American city has been selected.
The other four were in Chicago, Boston, Vancouver and San Francisco.
If you were in charge of tennis, what is the first rule you would change?
Considering that, over the years, the event has involved players from Brazil, Argentina, Australia and South Africa, to continue to revert back to this one continent is laughable for an event that claims to have been forged to bring tennis to areas that usually don’t get to see as much elite-level tennis.
And, it has actually disproven one of Roger Federer‘s promises for the Laver Cup.
Roger Federer’s broken Laver Cup promise
As recently as last year, Federer, the creator of this tournament, was asked what was next for the Laver Cup.
He revealed: “When I started the event with Tony [Godsick, his agent], the idea was that this has to be real tennis. This can’t be a hit-and-giggle. For this, we can do exhibitions elsewhere.
“The goal was to play in places that don’t get to see tennis too often. I think we did that here in San Francisco, in Berlin, in Vancouver.
“Asia also probably would not be a bad move … I would go to South America. Imagine this in South America with Joao [Fonseca] on the team.”
Andre Agassi recently said he’d like the Laver Cup to come to Brazil, but such a hope does not seem forthcoming.
Naturally, it is probably not easy to organise an event of this magnitude, but to continuously return to North America, a continent that already benefits from so much ATP and WTA-level tennis, seems to defeat the point of the entire tournament.
