The Laver Cup suit editorial shot ahead of this year’s London tournament placed some of the sport’s biggest names in earth-toned tailoring at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, with both Team Europe and Team World assembled for an editorial-style shoot styled by Jim Moore and photographed by Dan Martensen.
The Laver Cup, founded by Roger Federer as a tribute to Rod Laver, pits six top players from Europe against six from the rest of the world. The pot stands at $1.5 million, and the event is sanctioned by the ATP Tour, though no ranking points are awarded. This year’s European squad includes Carlos Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev and Flavio Cobolli; Team World lines up with Taylor Fritz, Alexander Bublik and Alex de Minaur.
The Format and the Stakes at the Laver Cup
According to the Laver Cup Official Website, the winning team must reach 13 points across the weekend’s matches. If the competition is tied after 12 matches, a final overtime doubles match is played as a regular set with ad scoring and a tiebreak. It is a format that keeps the pressure on deep into Sunday evening, and Europe has been the dominant force across the series. At the 2024 Laver Cup, Team Europe won 13–11 to take an overall 5–2 lead in the series, a record that underlines just how hard Team World has found it to claw back ground on home turf or anywhere else.
The hardcourt showdown itself is a weekend fixture, but the Greenwich shoot was the warm-up act, trading baseline rallies for Brunello Cucinelli, Louis Vuitton and BOSS, finished with Oliver Peoples eyewear across the board.
What the Players Said About the Laver Cup Suit Editorial
Cobolli, currently ranked seventh in the world, turned up in a grey pinstriped suit by Brunello Cucinelli over a buttoned-up white polo. He was direct about how the clothes landed. ‘I always feel good in a suit,’ he said. ‘I always feel like a model. Maybe in another life, I’d be a model, because I like wearing different things. I love moda.’ It is the kind of comfort in tailoring that translates well on camera, and Martensen’s brief was to keep things grounded rather than glossy.
Alcaraz wore a stone-hued double-breasted suit from Louis Vuitton and was equally at ease. ‘This is a world we don’t explore too much,’ he said. ‘And I love wearing suits. I like taking the time to do it properly, too. I’m trying to dress up as much as I can.’ For players who spend the bulk of their working lives in performance kit, a well-cut suit is a deliberate gear change, and Alcaraz leaned into it.
Learner Tien, who sits at World No.13 in the ATP men’s singles ranking according to Yahoo Sports, joined Fritz and Rafael Jodar in BOSS, pairing a cream-coloured suit with a pale crewneck tee. His brief was comfort-first. ‘I want to look good,’ he said, ‘but I always lean towards comfort. I usually like a suit where I can breathe a little bit.’ Given that he will need to breathe considerably more than a little once the matches start, that seems like a reasonable priority.
Martensen, who was chosen to photograph the shoot, brought a deliberately low-key approach to the setting. ‘For me, the aesthetic is always to keep things as natural as possible,’ he said. ‘Tennis is very solitary, and when you shoot a tennis player with other tennis players, which I’ve never really done before today, you see they’re actually yearning for the connection with each other and that they share a very specific bond.’ The Old Royal Naval College, with its colonnaded courtyards and river light, gave him the kind of backdrop that does not need much persuading.
The Laver Cup itself gets under way on hardcourt in London this weekend, with Europe needing to defend that 5–2 series advantage against a Team World side looking to finally close the gap.
