Thursday, September 22, 2022 – 12:51 PM
LONDON, 22nd September / WAM / After 5 years of its establishment, the Laver Cup will witness the end of the Swiss tennis player Roger Federer’s career through its fifth edition, which begins on Friday and continues until next Sunday in the British capital, London.
Federer, 41, recently announced his retirement from professional football by participating in this tournament, which he himself had the idea of establishing and played the biggest role in bringing it to light.
Federer will compete in this edition of Team Europe, which includes his traditional rivals Serbian Novak Djokovic and Spaniard Rafael Nadal, and the team also includes Norwegian Casper Ruud, Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, British Andy Murray, Cameron Nouri and Italian Matteo Bertini.
Team Europe faces the World Team, which includes Americans Jack Sock, Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Canadian Felix Auger Aliazemi, Argentine Diego Schwartzman and Australian Alex de Minor, while American John Isner announced his apology for not participating and replacing him. Countryman Tiafoe.
The European team is coached by the Swedish legend Bjorn Borg, assisted by his compatriot Thomas Enqvist, while the World Team is trained by the American legend John McEnroe, assisted by his younger brother Patrick McEnroe.
Federer aspires to lead the European team to maintain the full mark and win the championship for the fifth consecutive year.
Contrary to the rules of the tournament, which stipulate that each player from the two teams must participate in at least one individual match and a maximum of two individual matches, Federer asked McEnroe not to play any individual match in this version due to the injury conditions he suffered in the last period, which forced him to retire.
Federer preferred that the final word in his professional career be through the doubles match he will play on Friday, to be the 1750th match in his career in the World Tennis Association Championships. And the Italian Bertini will play the singles match instead of it on Saturday.
Thus, Federer’s match in the quarter-finals of the English Open (Wimbledon) on July 7, 2021 became his last at the level of professional singles matches, knowing that it coincided with his celebration of 23 years since his first professional singles match in his career, which was in the Gstaad Championship on July 7 1998 .
Federer, the winner of 20 titles from the four Grand Slam tournaments, expressed his hope during a press conference yesterday evening that the doubles match he will play tomorrow in the tournament will be alongside his arch rival Nadal, knowing that they played together in the doubles match in the first edition of the same tournament. in 2017.
And Federer gave a rare opportunity to tennis fans around the world, to witness his presence in one team with Nadal, his biggest and oldest rival, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles.
WAM/Ahmed Zahran/Dina Omar