Tennis Royalty Gather To Reveal Details For New Laver Cup Event

Five of the greatest players to ever swing a tennis racket convened at the St. Regis hotel in New York City to announce details of the Laver Cup, inspired by golf's Ryder Cup format. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal committed to play for the European team, which will be pitted against "The World" in a three-day competition scheduled for September 2017.

Bjorn Borg (Europe) and John McEnroe (World) will captain the teams for the first three years of the annual event. Joining the tennis legends on stage was perhaps the greatest of them all and the event's namesake, Rod Laver, who is one of two men's players to win a calendar Grand Slam (Laver did it twice). The quintet above won a combined 60 Grand Slams events in singles across three generations.

The Laver Cup was originally announced in January, but Wednesday's media event provided some details. It will feature teams of six players with four from each side qualifying based on their ATP rankings. The remaining two players will be captains' picks. Europe would seem to have a sizable advantage with the top five players in the current ATP rankings, including Federer and Nadal, but Borg and McEnroe both caution that a lot can happen in a year. "I think this is going to be a lot more competitive than it may appear at the moment," said McEnroe.

Borg and McEnroe were fierce rivals on the court and met 22 times during their careers with each winning 11 times. McEnroe joked: "Bjorn and I are great friends. He is the only guy I still get along with that I played against, which is a good thing."

The event will feature singles and doubles matches in a best of three sets format. Federer and Nadal say they plan to play doubles together. "To be on the same side of the net as Rafa finally is a great feeling and not facing the big forehand," said Federer.

The O2 arena in Prague, Czech Republic will host the inaugural event on an indoor hard court and the location will rotate annually between major cities around the globe. It will be staged two weeks after the U.S. Open, except during years with the Summer Olympics. There will be no appearance fees, which can reach seven figures for the top players, but the Laver Cup will feature prize money.

Federer's management company, TEAM8 , is the primary owner of the Laver Cup. Federer owns a stake in TEAM8, which is run by his longtime agent Tony Godsick. Federer, who was the fourth highest-paid athlete in the world over the last 12 months at $67.8 million, is sidelined for the rest of 2016 with a knee injury.

Other investors in the Laver Cup include Tennis Australia and Jorge Paulo Lemann, who is Brazil's richest man at $32 billion thanks to his stake in Anheuser-Busch InBev , which he owns through private equity firm 3G Capital. Lemann is a former Davis Cup player for both Brazil and Switzerland.