Professional tennis is coming back to the Bay Area.
It was announced on Thursday morning that the Laver Cup, also known as the Ryder Cup of tennis, will be played at Chase Center over three days beginning Sept. 19, 2025.
Former rivals, Sweden’s Björn Borg and the United States’ John McEnroe, serve as captains of six-player teams from Team Europe and Team World, respectively.
Team Europe won the first four renditions of the tournament beginning in 2017, though Team World has won the last two.
The Lavar Cup has sold out in each location it has been played in, but this is the first time it’ll be on the West Coast. Thus far, the tournament has been played in Prague, Chicago, Geneva, Boston, London and Vancouver. This year’s tournament will be played in Berlin. It rotates between Europe and the rest of the world.
“It’s been a success from Day 1,” said Tony Godsick, Laver chairman and Roger Federer’s longtime agent. “We knew anywhere we went, if we brought the biggest stars in the arena, we’d sell out.”
Godsick said the only professional tennis tournaments played in California are typically in Southern California, but “there’s a rich history” of tennis in Northern California.
“It’s a massive tennis community,” he said. “I believe they’ll be very excited about this.”
The tournament was started by Federer, who met Rod Laver at various tennis events and grew fond of the former legend, who remains the only player ever to win the Grand Slam twice in the same calendar year.
Federer told Godsick that he made more money in one day’s worth of appearance fees than Laver made in his entire career.
“Roger said, ‘Let’s go do something for Rod Laver,’” Godsick said. “When we started our company in 2013 we said, ‘What can we do that’s creative and gives back to the sport and brings back the generations to learn a bit about Rod Laver?’ We were talking about the Ryder Cup and I said, ‘I have a name for the cup.”
The Laver Cup’s first rendition in 2017 featured Federer and Rafael Nadal playing in a doubles match together, something that “you’d never seen on tour,” Godsick said.
The rosters typically feature three of the highest-ranked players based on their ATP singles ranking on the Monday following the French Open in June, and three additional players selected by the captains.
Federer and Nadal played on the same team three times, though Federer has since retired and Nadal has said 2024 will be his last playing professional tennis.
World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz has already committed to playing in this year’s Laver Cup, along with No. 3 Daniil Medvedev and No. 6 Alexander Zverev.
The rosters for the 2025 tournament won’t be announced until next June. In addition to appearance fees, each winning player receives $250,000 in prize money.
“Do people try hard? Yeah, they try hard, not only because it’s a real event but because they’re playing in front of legends,” Godsick said. “You think they aren’t going to try hard when Rod Laver is in the front row watching them?”
The event became an official part of the annual ATP Tour calendar in 2019. It always plays indoors on a “Laver Cup Black” hard court.
Laver, 85, now resides in Southern California but attends the tournament with his family each year.
“Now every year Rod has shown up, he gets there early, he tells stories, and that’s what Roger loves, the storytelling,” Godsick said. “There was a game of tennis before what you see today.”