The Laver Cup is a mere seven years old, but a significant era has come to an end. Since the Cup was first contested in 2017, the two captains have been the tennis legends Björn Borg and John McEnroe, but following Team Europe’s fifth championship in Berlin, both men are stepping down.
The two biggest rivals of the late 1970s and early 80s, Borg and McEnroe are being replaced by Yannick Noah, an icon of the mid-1980s, and Andre Agassi, whose top-level career ran from 1988 to 2006.
To any tennis fans under 40, the Wimbledon and US Open finals of 1980 and 1981 are ancient history. But they were four matches that helped establish professional tennis as a sport everyone around the world could have an interest in.
Borg won the Wimbledon final of 1980 after losing an epic 18-16 fourth-set tiebreak and then serving superbly to win the final set 8-6. McEnroe fended off a Borg comeback from two sets down to win the 1980 US Open final in five. In 1981, McEnroe finally won Wimbledon, beating Borg in four sets, and two months later he repeated the feat at Flushing Meadows. Though no-one knew it at the time, it was to be Borg’s last final at the age of 25.
As the Borg-McEnroe rivalry drifted into history, few could have imagined it would have a second incarnation at the Laver Cup from 2017 in Prague through to 2024 in Berlin. But when Roger Federer and his manager Tony Godsick conceived the new team competition to pay homage to Rod Laver and the sport’s history, they felt Borg and McEnroe would be the perfect inaugural captains.
“We realized at the time that it was a great decision,” Godsick said in Berlin on Friday, “but I didn’t realize how powerful it was going to be. This may be their last year captaining the teams, but they are going to be part of this event forever. They are part of the fabric.”
Although great rivals, Borg and McEnroe built up a great respect for each other from the beginning, which developed into friendship. It was said of the volatile McEnroe that he would never lose his cool against Borg, such was the respect he had for the Swede. “He was the first guy who took me under his wing,” says McEnroe, “and accepted me and showed me respect. To have the best guy in the world do that was an enormous boost to my confidence and to the feeling that I belonged.”
“It’s very rare that two guys, when they finish playing tennis, become such good friends,” says Borg, “but we did that in our playing days, both on and off the court.”
There is a symmetry to their rivalry. Their first match was in Sweden, which the American won, while their second was in America, which the Swede won. They played each other 14 times, their head-to-end ending – appropriately – at seven wins each.
Getting them to commit to a new team event was aided by the respect they both have for the man whose name adorns the competition. “Rod Laver was my idol growing up,” says McEnroe, “and I tried to emulate him and play like him.” Borg has similar sentiments: “Rod Laver was my idol when I started to play tennis when I was seven years old. During that time he was winning everything. I was looking up to him when I was eight, nine, ten years old, I wanted to be like Laver.”
Team Europe’s wins in the first four Laver Cups hurt the competitive McEnroe. His brother Patrick, who has been his ever-present vice-captain, talks of how determined John was to win in 2022 after losing the fourth staging in Boston in 2021. It didn’t look promising when Team World entered the final day in London 8-4 down, but McEnroe’s passion played a part in Europe coming back to win in the dramatic 11th match of the weekend. It was his finest hour in Laver Cup.
For Borg’s Vice Captain, the 1999 Australian Open runner-up Thomas Enqvist, it’s also the end of the road, as Noah, like Agassi, will pick his own deputy. Borg’s and Enqvist’s time has extended the golden era of Swedish tennis that began with Borg’s first Roland-Garros title in 1974.
The long blond hair of Borg and McEnroe’s curly brown mop are now a distinguished grey, but they are still icons of tennis, earning cheers and warm applause whenever they are introduced to crowds. One of Borg’s favorite phrases about Laver Cup week has been “It’s my favorite time of the year.” But ultimately what he and McEnroe brought to the table was that staple of sporting combat: the rivalry.
“We were the perfect yin and yang,” said McEnroe. “You had someone who was naturally aggressive against someone who was a counterpuncher. Everything about us was totally different – the way we looked and the way we played.”