Laver Cup 2022: Casper Ruud opens London tournament with win over Jack Sock after tie-break decider

Updated 23/09/2022 at 16:49 GMT

The 2022 Laver Cup kicked off with the tournament's first match on Friday afternoon between Team Europe's Casper Ruud and Team World's Jack Sock. The Norwegian and American went toe-to-toe as Sock rallied to level with the second set, and force the game to a decisive extended tie-break. Stream the Laver Cup exclusively live on discovery+ and eurosport.co.uk.

Highlights: Ruud beats Sock in three-set thriller to open Laver Cup

Casper Ruud beat Jack Sock 6-4 5-7 10-7 for Team Europe's first win in the opening match of the 2022 Laver Cup.

Ruud, who had the chance to become the world No. 1 at the US Open before Carlos Alcaraz’s triumph, was representing Team Europe.

Team World’s Sock fell 1-0 behind as the Norwegian claimed the first game by holding his serve.

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After three games, Sock was 3-0 down with team head John McEnroe aiming to encourage from the sidelines.

Sock rallied to 4-2 down in conditions that were reported as ‘freezing’ at the O2, London.

The American then brought Rafael Nadal to his feet, along with all of Team World, as he ran lightly across the court to bring himself 40-0 ahead on Ruud’s serve, before completing the break to bring him 5-4 behind, but he could not pull off a comeback to stop the Europeans taking a set.

While Ruud won the first game in the second set, it was much tighter as the European failed to maintain the same intensity and Sock kept up with his own service game.

Watch wonderful act of sportsmanship as Ruud concedes point over controversial let

In the 11th frame of the second set, Ruud appeared to lose his way and a series of double faults allowed Sock to press his advantage and break to go 6-5 up and then win 7-5.

That took the match to a 10-point tie-break decider.

Sock raced into a 3-0 lead as he made use of his backhand down the line, but a tweener set up Sock for what seemed to be a routine overhead that he sent into the net to leave Ruud 3-2 behind.

That error seemed to shake Sock as Ruud progressed to go 8-6 up as neither player was quite ruthless enough to bring things to a close prematurely, and Ruud fought to a 10-7 win.