Nadal injury takes gloss off Laver joy
Alex ZVeReV made up for the loss of an injured Rafael Nadal when he carried Team europe to victory in the laver Cup last night for the third time in its three editions.
While europe defeated Team World 13-11, after the German overcame Canadian Milos Raonic 6-4, 3-6, 10-4 in a deciding rubber, there will inevitably be fears for the recent US Open champion.
Nadal withdrew yesterday from a much- anticipated contest against Nick Kyrgios with what was described as inflammation in his left hand.
It was not immediately clear how serious the problem was for the Spaniard — who played twice on Saturday — but he has a history of suffering injuries towards the end of the season when the Grand Slams are over. He had an injection to treat the hand injury this weekend.
He is presently on course to finish the year as world No 1 ahead of Novak Djokovic.
Despite not having a player ranked higher than the lowest member of the europe team, the World team led 11-10 going into the 12th and final rubber after earlier wins for Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock in the doubles and Taylor Fritz in the singles.
Roger Federer, founder of the event taking place this year at the Palexpo Arena in Geneva, kept up his 100 per cent singles record in the competition by beating John Isner in the penultimate match.
That left Zverev to overcome Raonic, who put up a decent fight despite having been out injured since the second week of August. Once again the laver Cup had provided rich entertainment in front of huge crowds, full of interesting distractions such as the players coaching each other, sometimes in slightly hammedup fashion, on the sidelines.
While the players were clearly committed, there are still questions over its seriousness in the game’s wider context.
The scoring system of matches on the last day counting for triple those on the first day requires a leap of faith, for example, while some of the eligible top players were still not present.
Jamie Murray yesterday failed in his bid to win the Challenger event in Glasgow that is partly named after him when the Scot and Australia’s John- Patrick Smith were beaten 4-6, 6-3, 10-8 in the final by Belgium’s Ruben Bemelmans and Daniel Masur.
Brother Andy was thousands of miles away from the Murray Trophy, preparing for his return to ATP Tour action tomorrow in Zhuhai, China, where he will face America’s Tennys Sandgren.
The two- time Wimbledon champion is starting a run of four consecutive tournaments and was cautioning against the idea that he may soon be challenging again for Grand Slam titles.
‘I’m not expecting to get back to my very best,’ he said.
‘It would be probably a bit naive to think that. I do feel I can still compete at the highest level in terms of my skill, it’s just whether physically I can get to that level.’