ATP Tour

De Minaur saves MP to shock Zverev, Tien beats Cobolli at Laver Cup

Alex de Minaur has now defeated Alexander Zverev in two consecutive editions of the Laver Cup.

Team World’s De Minaur cruised past Team Europe’s Zverev last year in San Francisco. This year at The O2 in London, he needed to do his best Harry Houdini impression.

Zverev served for the match at 6-2, 5-4 and later had a match point at 9/8 in the final-set tie-break, when he pushed a forehand slice wide. But De Minaur, who put his body on the line in one moment with a diving volley, earned a memorable 2-6, 7-6(5), 11-9 win to give Team World a 5-3 advantage.

“Wow. What a day, huh?” De Minaur said after the match. “Only halfway through it. Pretty good start for Team World, but what a place to play some tennis. This is special, thank you guys and let’s have ourselves a little day.”

“Come here! Come here!” Team World captain Andre Agassi said to his charge after the match.

“You like that?” De Minaur asked.

“I love it!” Agassi enthusiastically replied as they embraced.

The Australian lost four of his service games and won just 59 per cent of his first-serve points, according to Infosys ATP Stats. But he continued to battle on and ultimately finished his comeback with great defence off a Zverev overhead.

“It was a very tough match, a tough battle,” said De Minaur, who narrowed his Lexus ATP Head2Head deficit against the recent US Open champion to 4-8. “I left it all out there and got fortunate in the end to get the job done and happy to give some points for Team World.”

Earlier in the day, Learner Tien clawed past Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 2-6, 10-7 to improve to 8-8 against players inside the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings.

Both men played conservatively in the slow conditions, waiting for only the perfect opportunity to strike. They each broke serve three times, with the match coming down to lengthy rallies.

Despite losing the second set, Tien bounced back to triumph after one hour and 36 minutes, sealing his win with a forehand passing shot that excited Team World, especially Agassi.

“I think in general I can reset pretty well… I think that’s a big strength of mine,” Tien said in his on-court interview. “In this format, no matter what the score is, I think everyone still has a chance. The match can just turn on a dime, so I think just being able to put the second behind me was really big today.”