Carlos Alcaraz beats Taylor Fritz to clinch Laver Cup for Group Europe | ATP Tour

Laver Cup

Alcaraz downs Fritz to finish Europe’s Laver Cup comeback

Group Europe captain Borg finishes reign with triumph

September 22, 2024

Carlos Alcaraz delivered a pair of gorgeous Sunday performances in Berlin to assist Group Europe full an exhilarating 13-11 comeback victory on the Laver Cup.

The No. 3 within the PIF ATP Rankings defeated Taylor Fritz 6-2, 7-5 in a winner-takes-all singles conflict to make sure Group Europe lifted the groups occasion trophy for the primary time since 2021. Alcaraz, who earlier on Sunday partnered Casper Ruud to an important doubles victory in opposition to Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, had an excessive amount of firepower from the baseline for his Prime 10 rival Fritz.

Carlitos comes up clutch 💪

The 6-2 7-5 victory over Fritz secures the title for Group Europe. 🏆@LaverCup | #LaverCup | @carlosalcaraz pic.twitter.com/MVpi4wSxPM

— ATP Tour (@atptour) September 22, 2024

Together with Ruud and Alexander Zverev, the latter of whom rallied previous Frances Tiafoe 6-7(5), 7-5, 10-5 to power the deciding match, Alcaraz ensured that Bjorn Borg ended his seven-year stint as Group Europe captain along with his fifth Laver Cup victory. Borg additionally led his males to victory on the first 4 editions of the occasion.

“It’s nice. Clearly we got here right here with a objective, to win the Laver Cup,” stated Alcaraz in his on-court interview. “We’re very, very completely satisfied about reaching our objective. We nearly misplaced, however Sascha got here with actually good tennis and gave me the possibility to win.”

The Spaniard broke his Fritz’s serve twice in every set en path to a 90-minute triumph at Uber Area. After he despatched down an unreturnable serve on match level, Alcaraz’s teammates swept onto court docket to have fun with him and captain Borg.

Regardless of defeat, Group World can look again on a valiant effort in Berlin the place, like Borg, John McEnroe was additionally captaining for the seventh and remaining time. Up in opposition to a European group that includes 5 of the Prime 10 gamers within the PIF ATP Rankings, it at one level stood simply three video games from victory when Tiafoe led Zverev by a set and a break of their singles encounter.

After Zverev turned that match round, nevertheless, Alcaraz got here out firing to enhance to 2-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head sequence with Fritz. The inspiration of his victory was his serve, and he completed the match having received 80 per cent (33/41) of factors behind his first supply, in line with Infosys ATP Stats.

Though he let slip a break lead within the second set as Fritz rallied from 2-4 to 4-4, he solid his fourth break of the match within the eleventh sport with some razor-sharp returning. From there, he made no mistake in serving out to safe a well-known win for Group Europe.