Australia’s Alex de Minaur played a starring role despite being a late call up as Team World defeated Team Europe in the Laver Cup at the Chase Centre in San Francisco, home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
American Taylor Fritz overcame Alexander Zverev 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to seal Team World’s triumph after de Minaur toppled the German the day prior.
Later that day, de Minaur combined with Alex Michelsen to down Holger Rune and Casper Ruud in doubles before he earned a 12th point for Team World on the final day by defeating Czech Jakub Mensik 6-3, 6-4 in singles.
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Fritz then secured the 13th point needed for victory with his win against Zverev after world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz kept the tie alive with singles and doubles victories.
De Minaur made the mad dash to the United States from Sydney after Australia’s Davis Cup loss to Belgium earlier this month, stepping in as a replacement for Frances Tiafoe.
The world No.8 was under the tutelage of Team World captain Andre Agassi and Australian great Pat Rafter, who served as vice-captain in San Francisco, and de Minaur relished the chance to “pick their brains”.
“I mean, they gave me a pretty simple game plan. Andre told me not to miss a return,” de Minaur said following his victory against Zverev.
“Pat told me not to miss a volley…I tried my best,” he added with a chuckle.
“No, it was honestly amazing to have both these guys on the bench and the whole week just being able to pick their brains and learn.
“I think it all kind of came together today, right?
“As I said, I’ve always been an open book in terms of getting information in, and I’m very happy that it all kind of came together and I was able to execute today on a very great game plan.”
De Minaur, who made five grand slams quarter-finals in the past two years, later gave a far more extensive answer on the impact Agassi and Rafter had on him throughout the week.
“For me, I had never met Andre before this whole event, right, so it was quite exciting for me to be around him,” de Minaur said.
“I wanted to just pick his brain, right, and see how he saw the game, because when he played, he was able to dominate the baseline exchange. He held that baseline so well and found, you know, different angles very easily when he was playing.
“So I’ve been able to ask him a couple of things, what he kind of tries to do. He’s been quite vocal with me, which I’ve really enjoyed.
“I thought it was very positive to not only use my speed to retrieve balls, but also cut some corners and take some time away inside the court and look at the court instead of as a small court, look at all the different spots on the court, because there’s a lot of different places that you can hit the tennis ball off groundstrokes. They have different effects and have that sort of variety.
“Then with Pat, I’m playing what is very much a stressful match, and he’s bringing such a calm energy to me. A big, big reason of today was literally us talking about the game plan, how we were going to come up with ways of hurting him. You know, the whole week we’ve been talking about the slice, right?
“Even yesterday I hit in the morning, and just after at the very end, I had five minutes of Pat just hitting slices with me and us working on exactly the shots that came today, whether it was the deep slice, the short slice, the short-line one, and ultimately, also helping on my transition game, because I am known for coming into the net.
“I’m not afraid of coming into the net, but at times I need to work a little bit more on my position and my balance when I get to the net and kind of where I cover, because you know, even today I thought I let him get away with a couple of passing shots that maybe I should be ready for since I’ve got that speed that I can kind of cover the net. So it’s been a work in progress, but I’ve enjoyed it.”