Team Europe closes the gap after nail-biter

Team Europe blew Laver Cup 2024 wide open in the first of the final day’s matches. Carlos Alcaraz and Casper Ruud beat the Team World pairing of Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe 6-2 7-6(6) to narrow the gap between the two teams to just one point with three matches to play.

With all four matches on the final day worth three points each, Team World’s 8-4 overnight lead is now just 8-7, which means both teams in Berlin need to win two of the remaining three singles contests.

The doubles – played first on Sunday after being the end-of-day match on Friday and Saturday – went a long way to being decided in the first three games. A nervous start for Alcaraz and Ruud led to them facing a break point in the second game, which they saved thanks to a fortuitous mis-hit forehand volley by the Spaniard.

Then in the next game, the Europeans rode their luck, a Ruud forehand kissing the net and flying over Tiafoe’s racket to set up three break points. Alcaraz converted the third of them with a backhand drop-volley played with delightful touch.

That breathed confidence into the blue pair, while it bred uncertainty in the reds. When the two Americans failed to convert a break-back point in the fourth game, they began to look a little rattled, Shelton in particular missing volleys he had made with ease in Saturday night’s emphatic doubles win alongside Alejandro Tabilo.

Not only did Europe’s captain Björn Borg show great trust in Ruud after the nightmare the Norwegian suffered for much of Saturday’s doubles, but a lot of thought had clearly gone into the Alcaraz-Ruud pairing. Most notably they swapped sides for return games, Ruud moving to the deuce court and Alcaraz to the ‘ad’ side. That meant most of the big points went to Alcaraz’s more ebullient returns, with Ruud playing a more solid role on the right.

With the first set in the bag after 37 minutes, Europe could have taken the decisive step in the third game of the second set, when two break points went begging. The Americans then regrouped to play a solid set without ever having break points. The sixth game included one of the most stunning shots seen in a tennis match, Alcaraz reaching for a backhand volley which he angled across court that left Tiafoe on the wrong side of the net and the crowd going wild. “I felt so good, I’m not going to lie,” Alcaraz said. “Juan Carlos [Ferrero, his coach] tells me not to do that in practice because he says I shouldn’t play that shot in matches, but I hope he was watching so he can see that I can use it in matches.”

The Spanish-Norwegian pair had another opportunity at 5-5 after a dramatic point which ended with Shelton tumbling over the advertising hoarding, fortunately unhurt, but Tiafoe saved the break point with a volley.

When Team World won three points on the run in the tiebreak to turn a 2-4 deficit into a 5-4 lead, it looked as if the Americans were peaking at just the right time, but the Europeans held firm and had a match point at 6-5 on the Shelton serve. Shelton saved it with a volley that tangled Alcaraz, but two points later the men in blue forced the visitors to play one more shot, and a Shelton backhand went long to seal victory for the home team after 100 absorbing minutes of play.

“It was a bit humiliating last night,” Ruud told the crowd. “I felt like I’d never played doubles before, I felt embarrassed, but I went to bed knowing Carlos had said he’d like to play doubles with me. I don’t know why, but I’m glad he did. He’s such a great guy, and he brought out the best in me today.”

The remaining singles are Daniil Medvedev against Shelton, Alexander Zverev facing Tiafoe, and Alcaraz playing a potentially winner-takes-all final match against Taylor Fritz.

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