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dpa
Washington
Think of tennis venues in the United States and Flushing Meadows in New York City and Indian Wells near Palm Springs, California come to mind.
Chicago? That's a football-baseball-ice hockey kind of place.
True, but Roger Federer believes there's room for tennis. Namely at the United Center, an arena that seats 23,500 that's been the home of the city's professional basketball and ice hockey teams for more than two decades.
It has been selected to host the second edition of Federer's pet project, the Laver Cup, this coming weekend.
The inaugural event was held last year in Prague, with Federer and Team Europe celebrating a victory. This year's edition gives the"home court" advantage to Team World - Chicago having been deemed worldly enough to host the team comprising players from the US, Australia, Argentina and South Africa.
That team can"count on the energy of the passionate Chicago sports fans" the Laver Cup's website promises.
Chicago has not hosted a major tennis event in more than 25 years. One of the last was between John and Patrick McEnroe, and now the American brothers return as the captain and vice-captain of Team World.
Federer was thrilled with the outcome in Prague when he capped Team Europe's win with a dramatic defeat of Team World's Nick Kyrgios. Europe claimed the trophy 15-9.
He called it"an amazing, fun week," and said he was"proud it worked as well as it did," adding that time will tell how big the event will become.
The second edition in Chicago might help answer that question. The third-largest city in the US after New York and Los Angeles has 2.7 million people, millions more when its sprawling suburbs are included.
It should not be too much to ask of that fan base for 20,000 or so people to turn out each day to see some of the world's best players in action over the three-day Laver Cup.
This year Federer will play along side US Open and Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia, Alexander Zverev of Germany, Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, David Goffin of Belgium and Kyle Edmund of Britain on Team Europe.
Notably missing is world number one Rafael Nadal of Spain, who retired with knee pain last week in the semi-final round of the US Open. The selection of Edmund for the final spot on the team was announced August 21.
The Briton has enjoyed a breakout year, steadily climbing from a world ranking of 50 in January to world number 16. He reached the semis at the Australian Open, the finals in Morocco and defeated both Djokovic and Goffin in Madrid.
Kyrgios returns as a World Team player and will be joined by John Isner and Jack Sock of the United States, Juan Martin del Potro and Diego Schwartzman of Argentina and Kevin Anderson of South Africa.
John McEnroe, whose long-time rival Bjorn Borg is the coach of Team Europe, called last year's event"a hell of a three days."
Borg predicted Team Europe would be"a force to be reckoned with" in Chicago as the team defends its our title. He called it"an extraordinarily strong team" and that was before Djokovic claimed his 14th grand slam on September 9 in New York, bringing Team Europe's collective grand slam-title number to 34. That compares with Team World's one.
But Chicago, home of the Cubs, who became baseball's champions in 2016 after a 108-year drought, might be just the place to show the value of patience and persistence in sports.
It will be up to the stars playing in the Laver Cup to prove definitively that that applies to tennis as well.
