John McEnroe captained Team World at the Laver Cup from 2017 to 2024.
The American tennis legend guided his side to two wins (2022, 2023) and five defeats (2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2024) before handing the baton to Andre Agassi 12 months ago.
McEnroe and Team World were often underdogs against European sides featuring many of the sport’s best players, including Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev.
Team World may have fared better against Team Europe throughout history, though… McEnroe has now picked his all-time Laver Cup squads.
John McEnroe picks Jimmy Connors for Team World but leaves out Carlos Alcaraz for Team Europe
“I’d put [Stefan] Edberg in, [Boris] Becker, [Andy] Murray [+the Big Three], those six,” said McEnroe when asked to pick his all-time Team Europe Laver Cup side on the ‘Served with Andy Roddick‘ podcast.
McEnroe picked Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Federer, and Novak Djokovic, but forgot several other tennis legends. When reminded of Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Borg, and Mats Wilander, McEnroe said the following.
“Deep bench! I don’t know who I’d kick out! I wouldn’t want to kick any of those guys out. Alcaraz would be a hell of an alternate.”
John McEnroe’s all-time Team Europe Laver Cup squad
| Player | Country | Grand Slam titles | Weeks at number one |
| Novak Djokovic | Serbia | 24 | 428 |
| Rafael Nadal | Spain | 22 | 209 |
| Roger Federer | Switzerland | 20 | 310 |
| Boris Becker | Germany | 6 | 12 |
| Stefan Edberg | Sweden | 6 | 72 |
| Andy Murray | Great Britain | 3 | 41 |
| Carlos Alcaraz (Alternate) | Spain | 7 | 66 |
McEnroe was also asked to pick his all-time Team World Laver Cup side, which had a real Team USA Davis Cup feel to it…
“To me, the last Davis Cup match I ever played was a doubles match, so you had a guy by the name of Pete Sampras, who I played with. To me, if Pete put his mind to it, he would’ve been an incredible doubles player,” he said.
“It’s hard not to look at Andre Agassi as somebody who would be able to rise to the occasion in singles and doubles. I picked Andre; I’ll pick myself. How about Mr Roddick; should we pick him? Doubles: you could serve people off!
“And you’d have to throw Jimmy [Connors] in there, absolutely. People aren’t aware of the fact that Jimmy won Wimbledon doubles and, I think, the US Open, so he could definitely play if he wanted to.”
John McEnroe’s all-time Team World Laver Cup squad
| Player | Country | Grand Slam titles | Weeks at number one |
| Pete Sampras | USA | 14 | 286 |
| Andre Agassi | USA | 8 | 101 |
| Jimmy Connors | USA | 8 | 268 |
| John McEnroe | USA | 7 | 170 |
| Andy Roddick | USA | 1 | 13 |
McEnroe and Roddick then got sidetracked and didn’t quite complete the six-man lineup. Who knows who would’ve earned that final spot… Rod Laver, perhaps?
John McEnroe predicts what would have happened if he was Team World Laver Cup captain 40 years ago
The 67-year-old shared his thoughts on how tennis has changed globally since he broke through on tour in the 1970s.
“When I came up, eight or nine of the ten guys were from the world; there were a lot of Americans. The only exception was [Bjorn] Borg, basically, the first handful of years I was playing. That’s late 70s into early 80s. What started changing was Sweden, in a way, because of Borg. All of a sudden, you’ve got guys like Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, who was number one at some stage in singles and doubles, so he would have been a formidable guy to play against. Boris Becker came into the mix,” said McEnroe.
Which player do you think will perform the best at the Laver Cup this year?
And who do you think will win – Team Europe or Team World?
“But then you’ve also got guys like Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi. It wasn’t until – I don’t know if the Olympics had a lot to do with it in 92, the Europeans put more money into the federations to build up their tennis capabilities. Because what ended up happening – who would’ve thought, and this is your era – these guys, Roger, Rafa, and Novak in particular, sort of came onto the scene and dominated.
“If you look at all the rankings in the last 10 years, in particular. You’d look at eight or nine of the top 10 being European, so that changed quite a bit. I think pretty much the 70s, 80s, into the 90s we would’ve kicked a–. I wish I was captain then!”
McEnroe isn’t wrong, but the tide is changing. The ATP top 10 is currently split 50-50 between players from Europe and the rest of the world. Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, and Flavio Cobolli are European. Ben Shelton, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Frances Tiafoe, Alex de Minaur, and Taylor Fritz represent the rest of the world.
With that in mind, maybe we will see Team World become more competitive at the Laver Cup in the coming years and reduce their head-to-head deficit against the Europeans.
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