GENEVA — After Roger Federer secured a must-win victory for Team Europe, Alexander Zverev ensured the Laver Cup was retained in a title-deciding super-tiebreaker against Canadian Milos Raonic of Team World.
Zverev fired a cross-court forehand winner to clinch a 6-4, 3-6, 10-4 victory in the decisive singles match and give the Europeans a 13-11 win in points.
After Zverev fell to the ground in triumph, he disappeared from view under a pile of celebrating teammates including Federer, Rafael Nadal and their captain Bjorn Borg.
Two hours earlier, Federer had delighted a sold-out crowd of 17,000 in his home country by beating John Isner 6-4, 7-6 (3) to set up the winner-take-all finale.
Europe began Sunday leading 7-5 in a scoring system that gave one point for a win on Friday and two on Saturday. Victories in the doubles and each of three singles matches scored three points on Sunday.
Nadal scratched from Europe’s intended lineup in both the opening doubles with Federer and the first singles due to an inflamed hand.
Isner and doubles specialist Jack Sock then beat Federer and Stefanos Tsitsipas 5-7, 6-4, 10-8.
Nadal’s replacement in singles, No. 5 ranked Dominic Thiem, was beaten 7-5, 6-7 (3), 10-5 by Taylor Fritz in a second straight match decided by the super-tiebreaker.
Fritz was a late replacement for Nick Kyrgios, who like Nadal scratched after both had played in singles and doubles on Saturday.
The European team also won the first two Laver Cup editions, played in 2017 in Prague and last year in Chicago.
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