Laver Cup Returns to London’s O2 Arena for 2026 Event

The Laver Cup is headed back to its most memorable prior locale, with London revealed Wednesday as the site for the 2026 iteration of the annual tennis event. The city’s O2 arena was where Roger Federer closed his legendary career during the 2022 Laver Cup.

The 2026 competition will be the ninth iteration of the event that rotates between a European location and one in the rest of the world, but the first time it will return to a previous site.

“From a commercial and hospitality standpoint, London is one of the great cities of the world,” Tony Godsick, Laver Cup chairman and TEAM8 CEO, said in a phone interview. “We need big arenas, and there are not that many of those around Europe.”

The Laver Cup hosted its first event in 2017 in Prague, and the format is comparable to golf’s Ryder Cup. It pits a team of six European players against a worldwide team over three days of matches. Team Europe leads the all-time competition 5-2, with the 2025 edition in September at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Yannick Noah (Team Europe) and Andre Agassi (Team World) are captains this year, replacing Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, who led their respective teams since the inaugural event.

The Laver Cup is a joint initiative between TEAM8, Tennis Australia, the USTA and Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann. In 2019, it became an official event on the ATP Tour calendar, with results counted towards player records. In 2024, the ATP and Laver Cup announced a five-year extension to their existing certification agreement.

The O2 was the busiest entertainment venue in the world last year, with 202 shows and 2.6 million attendees, according to Billboard. The AEG-owned venue is also home to a vibrant shopping and entertainment district that pushed total visitors over 10 million. Laver Cup execs worked with AEG for the 2022 event, as well as in 2024 at the AEG-operated Uber Arena in Berlin.

“AEG is one of the best event entertainment companies in the world and knows how to put on events,” Godsick said. “We know the parties there well … it was an easy marriage.”

Wimbledon has traditionally stoked a massive tennis market in London and the U.K. overall. In addition, The O2 hosted the ATP Finals from 2009 through 2020, before the season-ending championship moved to Turin, Italy, in 2021.

The Laver Cup was built on the back of Federer and Rafael Nadal, who have now both hung up their rackets for good, but the event has been sold out since Federer retired, as a new crop of stars has taken center stage. Federer is a Laver Cup co-founder, as he and Godsick launched TEAM8 together after both left IMG in 2012.

In Wednesday’s announcement, the 20-time Grand Slam champion, including eight Wimbledon titles, said he’s looking forward to returning to where he had his memorable sendoff and won two ATP Finals. “This time as a fan,” he said.