{"id":437414,"date":"2025-09-20T01:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/437414\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T01:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:31:09","slug":"going-inside-laver-cups-black-carpet-opening-night-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/437414\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Inside Laver Cup\u2019s Black Carpet Opening Night Gala"},"content":{"rendered":"

The black carpet of Laver Cup\u2019s opening night gala led past major champions and current Laver Cup players\u2014sometimes those are one and the same\u2014toward a different type of spotlight, one that wasn\u2019t about their tennis but about them.<\/p>\n

The annual event occurs the night before Laver Cup competition begins and draws roughly 800 people to attend a black-tie event that this year welcomed the likes of Rod Laver, Roger Federer, John McEnroe, Michael Chang, Stan Smith and Andy Roddick\u2014that\u2019s 40 major titles among those players alone, not even counting the six current Laver Cup Team Europe player Carlos Alcaraz adds to the mix\u2014to San Francisco\u2019s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.<\/p>\n

After walking the black carpet where media and photographers lined the black velvet ropes to snap shots and ask questions, the guests entered the gala, and the team captains and players had their moment on the stage. In what has turned into an annual tradition, each player introduces another, sometimes drawing laughs and exposing inside jokes.<\/p>\n

Evening host Melissa Stark welcomed the guests and invited Team Europe captain Yannick Noah to kick off the introductions. He did so in style, reading a poem he wrote about his \u201cgentleman\u201d vice captain, Tim Henman, tying together both the Brit\u2019s storied career and his ownership of a pub in his hometown of Oxfordshire.<\/p>\n

\"TeamTeam Europe\u2019s Tim Henman (Vice Captain) and Yannick Noah (Captain) arrive for the Opening Night Gala.<\/p>\n

Henman had a crack about the short shorts of Tomas Machac, who then introduced Flavio Cobolli by saying he\u2019s still dreaming of how to beat him. Jakub Mensik called Casper Ruud one of the best-looking players on tour and mentioned \u201cthe big Viking from Norway\u201d may have had to miss Wimbledon to tend to more important matters, while alluding to the fact Ruud and his\u00a0fianc\u00e9 are now expecting their first child.<\/p>\n

Holger Rune introduced Alex Zverev for being known to be late, adding he\u2019s been late to his hairdresser \u201cfor the last many years.\u201d Zverev, in keeping with the hair theme, introduced Alcaraz by saying he\u2019s had more haircuts than losses this season,\u00a0which Alcaraz agreed with.<\/p>\n

Team World captain Andre Agassi led off his introductions by joking Alcaraz was overrated before giving a heartfelt ode to tournament namesake Rod Laver. He also quipped to Federer that the last 11 times they played the Swiss player \u201cgot lucky.\u201d Jenson Brooksby introduced Reilly Opelka as the game\u2019s biggest bot and Opelka said Brazilian 19-year-old Joao Fonseca makes 20-year-olds feel old.<\/p>\n

Fonseca called Alex Michelsen the funniest guy on the team and Michelsen said he couldn\u2019t tell Francisco Cerundolo was Argentinian because he doesn\u2019t yell \u201cvamos\u201d all the time. Cerundolo said he appreciated Alex de Minaur speaking fluently to him in his native Spanish. To wrap it up, de Minaur introduced American star Taylor Fritz as a runway model.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got the poses, he\u2019s got the looks,\u201d he said. The evening included a welcome from Tony Godsick, Laver Cup chairman, a tribute to Laver from McEnroe and a musical performance amidst a meal and photo opportunities with the Laver Cup trophy.<\/p>\n

Walking the Black Carpet
<\/strong>As past champions and present players mixed on the black carpet, Federer said it was a chance to celebrate the players and have a great time. \u201cI hope the players enjoy getting dressed up and they like having good pictures taken of themselves as well, especially in a group environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere is going to be banter, it also gives them a chance to get outside their tennis clothes, locker rooms, hotel rooms and actually go out and be a team in a formal setting. It is probably a good thing, to be honest.\u201d \u2013 Roger Federer<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"Roger Federer \u2013 shaken, not stirred.<\/p>\n

The players, who came in as teams, posed for photos along the black carpet and then later for official black-tie portraits. Many said they were enjoying getting to know each other throughout the week. \u201cI am just getting to know the players off the court,\u201d Alcaraz said, \u201cwhich is great. I know how they prepare for the match, how they work out off the court. It is great to learn a little
bit how they work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zverev said he\u2019s trying to pick up positive things from his teammates and Ruud said they have really gelled as a group. \u201cWe help each other, joke with each other and it is a really fun team to be a part of,\u201d he said. There haven\u2019t been strange routines or superstitions to get in the way. \u201cWe are quite normal, a lot of us,\u201d Rune said. \u201cWe don\u2019t do that much different. We are professional with our routines and I didn\u2019t see anyone with any weird superstitions.\u201d Of course, that could still change, as De Minaur said. \u201cI think we have to wait for match day,\u201d the Australian said, \u201cthat is when we get a little more in our own ways and have our own routines. So far, we are all quite normal in that sense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The black carpet of Laver Cup\u2019s opening night gala led past major champions and current Laver Cup players\u2014sometimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[11809,86168,38012,6359,26344,15775,35716,25761,13793,13325,79,1068,48674,16,15,147884],"class_list":{"0":"post-437414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-alex-de-minaur","9":"tag-alex-michelsen","10":"tag-andre-agassi","11":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","12":"tag-casper-ruud","13":"tag-francisco-cerundolo","14":"tag-jakub-mensik","15":"tag-joao-fonseca","16":"tag-john-mcenroe","17":"tag-roger-federer","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tennis","20":"tag-tim-henman","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-yannick-noah"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115234045216184342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}