Roger Federer's excited for 'superstar combinations' in doubles at the 2023 Laver Cup, but what are the dream pairings?
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Published 21/09/2023 at 13:18 GMT
Roger Federer is excited to see the "superstar combinations" in the doubles at the 2023 Laver Cup, so who would be the dream pairings in Vancouver? Federer is set to be watching on as Team Europe aim to win back the Laver Cup from Team World. Andrey Rublev will be the highest-ranked singles player on Team Europe, while Taylor Fritz will lead Team World.
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Among the highlights of every Laver Cup are the doubles pairings.
Last year saw Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal team up in London in Federer’s last-ever match before retiring. Federer and Novak Djokovic have also played together, while Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock has been a fun pairing.
Federer will be watching this year’s Laver Cup in Vancouver from the stands and says he is excited to see what “superstar combinations” are made in the doubles.
With that in mind, we pick our top five doubles pairings we’d like to see at the 2023 Laver Cup.
Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe
You want to get the home crowd pumped up, this is the combination to do it for Team World.
Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe are both big, fun personalities who bring lots of energy to the court, as they demonstrated in their thrilling US Open quarter-final earlier this month.
Tiafoe clinched the decisive win at last year’s Laver Cup in London and will be a player Team World captain John McEnroe is looking to for some points this time around.
Shelton is coming off the back of his US Open semi-final run and with his huge serve could be a threat in doubles as well as singles.
Hubert Hurkacz and Andrey Rublev
Hubert Hurkacz and Andrey Rublev together was Federer’s pick for a doubles team he would like to see at the Laver Cup, so we’re happy to include it too.
It’s not a team that you would expect to see together, which is partly why Federer went for it.
Both, though, have played a bit of doubles this year.
Hurkacz, who has one of the biggest serves on tour, actually reached No. 30 in the doubles rankings in 2022, while both he and Rublev have won four career doubles titles.
It would be intriguing to see how they work together on court.
Gael Monfils and Arthur Fils
Could we see an all-French doubles pairing?
At 37, Gael Monfils is coming to the end of his career but remains one of the sport’s biggest entertainers and can still kick it with the best as he showed with wins over Cameron Norrie, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex de Minaur over the summer.
Fils, 19, could be the future of French tennis after breaking into the top 50 and winning his first career ATP title this year.
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Arthur Fils replaced Stefanos Tsitsipas in the team
Image credit: Getty Images
Fils has played already played doubles this year with a couple of other Frenchman in Luca Van Assche and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.
A pairing with Monfils at the Laver Cup could be fun.
Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul
Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul go way back.
They were dorm mates as juniors when they trained together in Florida and played each other in the finals of the boys’ singles at the French Open and US Open in 2015.
They have teamed up several times in doubles on the ATP Tour, including in Rome and Indian Wells earlier this year.
With their history together, this could be a winning combination for Team World.
Andrey Rublev and Gael Monfils
You don’t have to look far back to see the kind of entertainment that Andrey Rublev and Gael Monfils can provide.
The Team Europe team-mates put on a show when they played each other at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown in Frankfurt last week.
There appeared genuine chemistry between the pair during a very warm embrace after the match, and when they seen jumping into a chest bump during practice.
Expect plenty of smiles again if they are paired together in Vancouver.
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