How do you “honor the past, celebrate the current and bring together the future stars” of tennis in just three days?
If you’re Tony Godsick, agent to Roger Federer of Switzerland, and driving force behind the Laver Cup, whose second edition will be played in Chicago this weekend, the answer is simple. You pit a handpicked team of European stars and emerging talent against a rest-of-the-world team in a briskly paced competition named for the man synonymous with professionalizing the men’s game.
“Three and a half years ago,” Godsick said, “I was driving back with Roger from an event in Shanghai, and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Do you know that I make more money from a one-night exhibition than Rod Laver made in his entire career?