Team tennis has a very short season. The Laver Cup takes over one arena for three days each September, plays twelve matches, and then packs up and leaves. In 2026 that arena is The O2 in London, from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 September. It is the ninth edition of the event, and the first time it has returned to a city it has already visited — London hosted in 2022.

If you are thinking about going, there is one thing worth understanding before you book, because it changes which ticket you want.

Five sessions, five separate tickets

The most common mistake with the Laver Cup is treating it as a single event. It is not. Each of the three days is divided into ticketed sessions, and one ticket admits you to one session only.

Friday and Saturday each have an afternoon session and an evening session. Both afternoon sessions are two singles matches. Both evening sessions are one singles match plus one doubles match. Sunday is built differently: a single long afternoon session that opens with a doubles match, continues with up to three singles matches as required, and includes the trophy ceremony.

All five sessions are listed together on the Laver Cup tickets page, which shows what is currently on sale. When this article was written, the Friday and Saturday afternoon sessions were still marked as coming soon, with the option to register for an alert when they open. The other three were already showing limited availability.

The scoring is what makes Sunday special

The Laver Cup is Team Europe against Team World across twelve matches, but the matches are not worth the same amount.

Every match on Friday is worth one point. Every match on Saturday is worth two. Every match on Sunday is worth three. Twenty-four points are available in total, and the first team to reach thirteen wins the trophy. If the teams are level after twelve matches, a deciding doubles match settles it. Matches are best of three sets, with a ten-point tie-break in place of a third set.

Why the trophy cannot be won before Sunday

Do the arithmetic and something useful appears. Friday offers four points and Saturday offers eight, which is twelve in total — one short of the thirteen needed to win. So no matter how one-sided the first two days are, the competition is still alive when Sunday begins. That is unusual in team sport, and it is the strongest argument for the Sunday session if you can only attend one.

What the earlier sessions give you instead

The trade-off is quantity and atmosphere. Friday and Saturday deliver a guaranteed four matches per day across two sessions, with the doubles played in the evening under full arena lights. Sunday guarantees fewer matches on paper, because the singles are only played if the tie needs them, but every point carries triple weight.

A black court that arrives in panels

The Laver Cup introduced black courts to tennis at its first edition in Prague in 2017 and has used them ever since. The court is portable, and the numbers behind it are worth knowing: around 460 modular wooden panels, laid overnight by a small crew, finished in a shade of black mixed for this competition alone. Two identical courts exist, and they are stored in Munich between editions.

Inside an arena, the effect is closer to a boxing bill than a tennis tournament. The seating wraps tightly around the court, the lighting is dropped onto the playing surface, and the two team benches sit courtside with the captains and the players who are not on court reacting to every rally.

Getting there, and building a weekend around it

The O2 stands on the Greenwich peninsula in south-east London. North Greenwich Underground station on the Jubilee line is beside the entrance, and river boat services call at the pier next door, which makes arriving from central London straightforward even at busy times. The venue page for The O2 lists everything scheduled there, so you can see what else is on during the same period.

Late September is also a full weekend across the rest of the city. The London events page collects the sport and concerts on sale, and Champions League and Premier League fixtures often fall close to these dates, which makes a two-event trip realistic without a long journey between venues.

Whichever session suits you, book the travel and the ticket in the same week. Three days in one arena means a fixed number of seats, and the sessions already on sale are the ones being taken first.

Browse the full Laver Cup programme, or see everything on the tennis calendar, and choose the session you actually want to be in the room for.