Cobolli at the Laver Cup: Federer’s investiture

Flavio Cobolli will be the protagonist of the Laver Cup, scheduled for the weekend in Berlin. The Italian tennis player, 22, was chosen by the captain of Team Europe, Bjorn Borg, as an alternate, together with the German Jan Lennard Struff. Initially, therefore, they will not be part of the starting lineup, but they will still participate in all the team’s activities. Two months ago, the Old Continent’s lineup was defined. Casper Ruud and Stefanos Tsitsipas were the last two tennis players to answer the call and will participate together with Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz, while Rafael Nadal withdrew in recent days: the 22-time slam winner had been announced in recent months to be part of the event created by his great friend Roger Federer, but in the end the Mallorcan champion, 38, did not feel like it, saying he did not feel at a level to compete.

Roger sends me

—

The choice of Cobolli is not a coincidence. Federer, the person who created this event in 2017, has had his eye on Flavio’s talent for some time now, and it is no coincidence that he wanted him in On, the Swiss clothing company that has the former world number one among its major shareholders and that already has names like Iga Swiatek and Ben Shelton as testimonials. Cobolli is undoubtedly one of the emerging players not only at an Italian level, and therefore his call to the Laver Cup can be seen as a sort of investiture for the Roman, a certification that he has entered, or is entering, among the greats of tennis. The twenty-two-year-old Roman is the third Italian to participate in the Laver Cup, after Fabio Fognini and Matteo Berrettini. The latter was there in the 2022 edition, the one that marked Federer’s farewell to tennis, after the doubles played with Rafael Nadal. There is also news for the World team: given the exclusion of Tommy Paul and Alex de Minaur due to injuries, captain John McEnroe has chosen Francisco Cerundolo and Thanasi Kokkinakis to replace them. The Argentine and the Australian will play alongside Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz and Alejandro Tabilo.