{"id":35522,"date":"2026-09-27T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/laver-cup-carlos-alcaraz-saves-match-points-as-team-europe-take-lead\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:49:08","slug":"laver-cup-carlos-alcaraz-saves-match-points-as-team-europe-take-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/laver-cup-carlos-alcaraz-saves-match-points-as-team-europe-take-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Laver Cup: Carlos Alcaraz saves match points as Team Europe take lead"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Two-time Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz narrowly avoided back-to-back singles defeats for the first time in 18 months as Team Europe took a 7-5 lead over Team World at the Laver Cup.<\/b><\/p>\n

The world number three saved two match points before overcoming Taylor Fritz 6-3 4-6 13-11 in a dramatic deciding tie-break at London’s O2 Arena.<\/p>\n

It was Alcaraz’s first singles outing since his late-night quarter-final exit to Ben Shelton at the US Open.<\/a><\/p>\n

“The drop shot is part of my game,” Alcaraz said after sealing victory with a trademark touch.<\/p>\n

“In those really close and important moments, I tried to use it because it was a really good weapon for me in this match.”<\/p>\n

American Fritz, whose only previous victory against the Spaniard came during Team World’s triumph in last year’s competition, kept errors to a minimum.<\/p>\n

However, Alcaraz struck 42 winners to Fritz’s 20, bringing an audience that included Roger Federer and Andy Murray to their feet.<\/p>\n

Facing match point at 8-9 down in the tie break, Alcaraz fired an ace before leaning on a drop shot to stave off a second. He converted his third match point when Fritz failed to retrieve another delicate drop shot over the net.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday, Andre Agassi’s Team World had threatened to run away with things.<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur fought back from a set down to shock Alexander Zverev 2-6 7-6 (7-5) 11-9, while American debutant Learner Tien edged Italy’s Flavio Cobolli 6-3 2-6 10-7.<\/p>\n

Following Alcaraz’s singles heroics, Zverev returned to the court alongside Casper Ruud to secure an important 6-4 7-6 (9-7) doubles victory over Alexander Bublik and Brandon Nakashima, keeping Europe ahead going into the final day.<\/p>\n

Match wins are worth three points on Sunday, with the first team to reach 13 points lifting the trophy.<\/p>\n

Europe are chasing their sixth Laver Cup title, while holders Team World are aiming for their third.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two-time Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz narrowly avoided back-to-back singles defeats for the first time in 18 months as Team Europe took a 7-5 lead over Team World at the Laver Cup. The world number three saved two match points before overcoming Taylor Fritz 6-3 4-6 13-11 in a dramatic deciding tie-break at London’s O2 Arena. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35524,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35522\/revisions\/35524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}