10 years of Laver Cup: Nerves, serves and Federer’s ‘lucky’ London farewell
Tony Godsick vividly remembers the day, exactly 10 years ago, when he and Roger Federer, his biggest client, went public with their big idea: the Laver Cup.
“I was nervous,” Godsick tells City AM. “I had been in the sport for a long time already, and this concept was screaming to be done, but no one had done it for a reason, I guess because things are just hard to do in tennis.
“We didn’t even have our branding done yet. It was innovative. It was risky. I was like, wow, should we be doing this? And I’m so glad that we did. It’s exceeded my wildest expectations.”
That Federer was not just endorsing this Ryder Cup of tennis but was one of its architects secured buy-in from fellow players and Rolex’s backing for the inaugural Laver Cup in 2017.
“We got a great head start,” says Godsick, the Swiss 20-time Grand Slam winner’s long-time manager. “The first year, I think we had six sponsors. Now we have over 20.
“We’ve sold out all our events so far. We still have a long way to go, but I always tell people, this is a historical event with no history, and we’ve got to create the history.”
The Laver Cup, which pits a European team against a Rest of the World side over three days of competition, is returning to the O2 in September as London becomes the first repeat host city.
“We know that it’s a guaranteed formula for success, because the O2 is one of the most iconic venues in the world. Like Madison Square Garden, these are bucket list venues,” he says.
“The UK is probably the most sophisticated and knowledgeable tennis fan base in the world. We’re coming back to a city that knows how to throw an incredible party.”
Godsick: Federer Laver Cup swansong ‘perfect’
Part of the Laver Cup’s appeal to tennis fans is seeing rivals play on the same team, as Federer and Rafael Nadal memorably did to mark the former’s farewell to the sport in London in 2022.
“That’s gonna be hard to top. When I and Roger created the Laver Cup, we never thought it’d be used as a platform for his retirement. It just wasn’t even a thought,” says Godsick.
“Then, after the [Wimbledon] Championships back in ‘22 and he realized, ‘where am I gonna retire?’ I said, ‘Well, you can wait a whole year and retire at Wimbledon, or the easiest place is a Laver Cup’.
“And to have his biggest rivals — Nadal, [Novak] Djokovic, [Andy] Murray — all there, playing on his team, [Bjorn] Borg and [John] McEnroe there, and Rod Laver. We still talk about it today. It was perfect. But it was lucky.”
Federer, 44, is being lined up as a future European captain but others are ahead in that queue and Yannick Noah will reprise the role this year, against Andre Agassi’s world team.
Stars will stick by Laver Cup as tennis evolves
As players, tours and Slams wrangle over how the sport should look in future, the Laver Cup appears to have pulled off the rare feat of uniting the competing factions in tennis.
“I’ve been in the sport since the early 90s and there’s always calendar discussion. I think there needs to be discussion about how to grow and innovate,” Godsick says.
“Tennis didn’t do it for a while, and as other sports are getting bigger and stronger and more global, tennis has to do the same. Otherwise we’ll get left behind.
“I’m excited about the future of tennis. I’m extremely bullish. If it was a stock, I’d be buying more and more of it, because it always finds a way to spit out new, huge, global superstars.
“The players are always wanting less tennis, but there’s other players who say, ‘Hey, just put a lot of tennis out there, and we’ll play where we want’, which I kind of like.
“I’m confident they’ll end up picking an event like the Laver Cup.”