Alcaraz downs Fritz to complete Europe’s Laver Cup comeback
p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a delivered a pair of stunning Sunday performances in Berlin to help Team Europe complete a thrilling 13-11 comeback victory at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/laver-cup/9210/overview'Laver Cup/a. /p
p The No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings defeated a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/taylor-fritz/fb98/overview'Taylor Fritz/a 6-2, 7-5 in a winner-takes-all singles clash to ensure Team Europe lifted the teams event trophy for the first time since 2021. Alcaraz, who earlier on Sunday partnered a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/casper-ruud/rh16/overview'Casper Ruud/a to a crucial doubles victory against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ben-shelton/s0s1/overview'Ben Shelton/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/frances-tiafoe/td51/overview'Frances Tiafoe/a, had too much firepower from the baseline for his Top-10 rival Fritz. /p
blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Carlitos comes up clutch ????brbrThe 6-2 7-5 victory over Fritz secures the title for Team Europe. ????a href="https://twitter.com/LaverCup?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@LaverCup/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LaverCup?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#LaverCup/a | a href="https://twitter.com/carlosalcaraz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@carlosalcaraz/a a href="https://t.co/MVpi4wSxPM"pic.twitter.com/MVpi4wSxPM/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1837940615654388069?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 22, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
p Along with Ruud and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a, the latter of whom rallied past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/frances-tiafoe/td51/overview'Frances Tiafoe/a 6-7(5), 7-5, 10-5 to force the deciding match, Alcaraz ensured that a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/bjorn-borg/b058/overview'Bjorn Borg/a ended his seven-year stint as Team Europe captain with his fifth a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/laver-cup/9210/overview'Laver Cup/a victory. Borg also led his men to victory at the first four editions of the event. /p
p “It’s great. Obviously we came here with a goal, to win the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/laver-cup/9210/overview'Laver Cup/a,” said Alcaraz in his on-court interview. “We are very, very happy about reaching our goal. We almost lost, but Sascha came with really good tennis and gave me the chance to win.” /p
p The Spaniard broke Fritz’s serve twice in each set en route to a 90-minute triumph at Uber Arena. After he sent down an unreturnable serve on match point, Alcaraz’s teammates swept onto court to celebrate with him and captain Borg. /p
p “It’s always tough to play Team World at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/laver-cup/9210/overview'Laver Cup/a,” said Borg. “You’ve seen good tennis this week and I thought that we weren’t going to win it, but the guys played great tennis and we came through. For me to spend time with these players in Team Europe, it’s a lot of fun. We have a good team spirit and we gave everything. I’m very proud of my team.” /p
p/p
p Despite defeat, Team World can look back on a valiant effort in Berlin where, like Borg, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/john-mcenroe/m047/overview'John McEnroe/a was also serving as captain for the seventh and final time. Up against a European team featuring five of the Top 10 players in the PIF ATP Rankings, it at one point stood just three games from victory when Tiafoe led Zverev by a set and a break in their singles encounter. /p
p /p
div
style="position: relative; display: block; max-width: 100%;"
div
style="padding-top: 56.25%;"
iframe
src="
https://players.brightcove.net/6057277721001/8gZSNwgH_default/index.html?videoId=6362316512112"
allowfullscreen=""
allow="encrypted-media"
style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"/iframe
/div
/div
p After Zverev turned that match around, however, Alcaraz came out firing to improve to 2-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Fritz. The foundation of his victory was his serve, and he finished the match having won 80 per cent (33/41) of points behind his first delivery, according to Infosys ATP Stats. /p
p Although he let slip a break lead in the second set as Fritz rallied from 2-4 to 4-4, Alcaraz earned his fourth break of the match in the 11th game with some razor-sharp returning. From there, he made no mistake in serving out to secure a famous win for Team Europe. /p
p [NEWSLETTER FORM] /p