PRAGUE — After a clean sweep of the first-day singles matches by Team Europe on Friday, “exhibition” was still a dirty word at the Laver Cup.

After all, Roger Federer and his management group and the other investors in this new competition have big, long-term plans for the event.

They want gravitas with their groundstrokes, and do not want this three-day duel between a team representing Europe and a team representing the rest of the world to be just another hit-and-chuckle payday for the stars. No matter that the Laver Cup awards no ranking points and has been created outside the structure of the regular men’s tour.

Federer visibly bristled this week when asked whether this was an exhibition or something more meaningful. Rafael Nadal said he woke up on Thursday at 4 a.m. to get ready to practice. “An exhibition match — I don’t practice before an exhibition match normally, no?” he explained in Nadalese.