Laver Cup 2026: Zverev and Alcaraz lead Europe at The O2, and holders Team World arrive without Shelton and Paul

The ninth Laver Cup begins on Friday at The O2 in London, where Team World won the competition for the first time in 2022 on the weekend of Roger Federer's last match. Team Europe, captained by Yannick Noah, fields Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Flavio Cobolli, Rafael Jódar, Jakub Menšík and Casper Ruud; Team World, under Andre Agassi, has Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur, Learner Tien, Brandon Nakashima, Alexander Bublik and Francisco Cerúndolo, and is the holder after winning 15-9 in San Francisco last year. Play runs over five sessions, Friday and Saturday at 1 pm and 7 pm local time and Sunday from noon; Friday's line-up is drawn blind and announced on Thursday afternoon.

Two withdrawals since the squads were named

Tommy Paul withdrew on 12 September with an elbow injury from the US Open, the second year running that an injury in New York has kept him out, and Cerúndolo, who will play his fourth Laver Cup in a row, took his place. Ben Shelton withdrew on 17 September, four days after losing the US Open final to Zverev and the day before the Davis Cup tie in Prague, where he played and lost both his singles. He said that after the US Open and the Davis Cup he had "to make the difficult decision to take some time to rest". Nakashima, ranked 16th, makes his debut in his place. Team Europe is unchanged, and the organisers confirmed both line-ups on 21 September and named Arthur Fery and Ignacio Buse as the alternates; Buse is at the event for the first time. On the rankings of 21 September Europe has the world No. 2 and No. 3 in Zverev and Alcaraz and nobody outside the top 17; World's highest-ranked player is de Minaur at No. 9, and the average ranking of its six is 15, against Europe's ten. On the rankings Europe is the stronger side by some distance.

The players

Zverev arrives on his third consecutive weekend of competitionde. He won the US Open on 13 September, his second major of the year, and six days later won both his singles for Germany against Croatia in Halle without dropping a set. Alcaraz, by contrast, has played one tournament since the spring: the US Open, his first after about five months out with a wrist injury, which ended in a quarter-final against Shelton that finished at 3:33 am, the latest in the tournament's history. He practised with Zverev on Wednesday, his first hit on the black court, and called him "probably the best player in the world right now". Last year Alcaraz beat Cerúndolo in singles and won a doubles with Ruud on the Sunday, but Fritz, who had beaten him 6-3, 6-2 on the Saturday, then beat Zverev 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the twelfth match to take the cup.

Jódar, who turned 20 this month, is the only debutant. A year ago he was ranked 325th; he is now 14th, after a quarter-final at the Australian Open as a qualifier, a first title in Marrakech and a Masters 1000 semi-final in Montreal. Last weekend he beat Cristian Garín 6-0, 6-2 on his Davis Cup debut in Santiago. Menšík and Tien have already met this month: Tien beat him 6-2, 6-4 in Prague on Friday, before Menšík beat Shelton and Czechia knocked the United States out. De Minaur won both his singles for Australia against Poland in Brisbane the same weekend. Noah and Agassi are in their second year as captains, with Tim Henman and Patrick Rafter as their deputies; Henman said this week that Europe fancied its chances twelve months ago "and we definitely fancy our chances this weekend".

How the cup is decided

Twelve matches are played, nine singles and three doubles, and a win is worth one point on Friday, two on Saturday and three on Sunday; 13 of the 24 points win the cup. Sunday alone carries twelve points, which is why no lead after two days is safe: in Berlin in 2024 Europe trailed 4-8 and won 13-11, and last year World trailed 1-3 after Friday and led 9-3 after Saturday. Matches are best of three sets with a ten-point match tiebreak in place of a third set, and a 12-12 tie is settled by one extra doubles set. Every player must play singles at least once over the first two days and at most twice in all; at least four of the six must play doubles, and no pairing may be repeated before the tiebreak set.

The home team chooses whether to submit its line-up card first on Saturday or on Sunday, and the visitors go first on the other day; the second card follows within 30 minutes. In San Francisco Agassi and Rafter chose to submit first on Saturday and put their strongest players on that day; Rafter said afterwards that the aim was to reach Sunday still in contention. In London the choice is Noah's. The competition is an ATP-sanctioned event with ATP officials and its results count in the players' career records, but it carries no ranking points; the winning six receive $250,000 each and the losers no prize money.

The O2, four years on

The last Laver Cup here, in 2022, was Federer's final tournament: he played a Friday doubles with Rafael Nadal, lost to Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe, and World went on to win 13-8 from 4-8 down on the Sunday, with Tiafoe saving four match points against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the last match. Federer was back at the arena on Wednesday, when its owners unveiled a backstage room named after him, the first at the venue dedicated to an athlete, and he posed for the trophy photographs with Rod Laver and both captains. The black court, assembled from 460 pieces, went down on Monday.

Europe leads the series 5-3 after eight editions, but World has won three of the last four. The tenth edition moves to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Los Angeles, from 24 to 26 September 2027.