Patricio Monzón Battilana
Bachelor of Social Communication (Unne)
Special for El Litoral
Like everyone else, the pandemic took something fundamental away from Leonardo “Yacaré” Mayer, who retires as the best tennis player in the history of Corrientes: time… to play a full 2020 and in rhythm, as he had been trying since the previous year, and qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021.
After 18 years of a fruitful singles and doubles career, his farewell to the circuit of the Association of Professional Tennis Players (ATP) was not received with surprise, but with pride for everything achieved for national tennis and, of course, a little of pain, wanting to see once again his powerful serve, his right cross or his parallel backhand.
Recognized for his humility by his peers from all hemispheres, Mayer was trained on the brick dust courts of the Corrientes Tennis Club (CTC), although he would also have excellent results on grass, concrete and carpet, reaching 21st in the world in 2015, and 48th in the doubles ranking, in 2019. Undoubtedly his greatest achievement was his decisive role in four of the five rounds of the 2016 Davis Cup, including the final. But he was not the only one, not even close.
Yacaré was two-time champion of the ATP 500 in Hamburg, in 2014 and 2017, and runner-up in 2018. He added two more finals, in Viña del Mar 2014 and Niza 2015. He also won the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires in 2011, his second home, together with the Austrian Oliver Marach, as well as four other runners-up in doubles, three of them on concrete.
In the Grand Slam, the four most important tournaments of the year, he excelled in both disciplines; in singles, he reached the round of 16 on the 2014 Wimbledon turf and the 2019 Roland Garros brick dust, where on five previous occasions he had reached the third round; In doubles, he excelled on concrete, climbing to the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2019, as well as three times to the quarterfinals of the United States Open.
In turn, Mayer was very successful on the Challenger circuit, the second level after ATP. There he won nine crowns and 12 runners-up in singles, and eight trophies and eight finals in doubles, most of them on brick dust. To measure the magnitude of these achievements, the other two best Corrientes in history, Sebastián Decoud (132 ° in 2009) and Agustín Velotti (166 ° in 2013) have, respectively, four and two Challenger titles in singles, and five and one in doubles.
Matches for memory
Statistics can be as fair as they are cold, when recalled without context. In the cement of the ATP 1000 Shanghai 2014, Mayer lost 5-7, 6-3 and 6-7 (7) against the living legend Roger Federer, after failing to finalize five match points. With a superlative level, there was nothing to regret: he had on the ropes who many analysts and colleagues proclaim as the Goat (The best of all time, for its acronym in English).
Among his memorable triumphs, the finals of Hamburg 2014 stand out against the 7th in the world, the Spanish David Ferrer, by 6-7 (3), 6-1 and 7-6 (4); and in 2017 against his namesake, the local Florian Mayer, by 6-4, 4-6 and 6-3. While on the 2018 Queens turf, he defeated South African giant Kevin Anderson, 8th in the ranking, 7-6 (4), 4-6 and 7-6 (3).
At Roland Garros he also stacked several of his best victories: in 2011, coming from the qualifying stage, he beat Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis (29th) by partials of 7-5, 6-4 and 7-6 (6); in 2012, he swept the German Philip Kohlschreiber (26th) by 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) and 7-5; and in 2019, he consecutively defeated his compatriot Diego Schwartzman (20th) and local Nicolas Mahut.
A pearl: among the few games he played this year, Mayer dominated from start to finish the Italian star Lorenzo Musetti, 6-4, 6-3, in the Antalaya Challenger 2. Musetti is 6th in the ranking of professionals up to 21 years old, he almost beat Djokovic at Roland Garros and the specialized press projects that he will contest the top positions in a few years.
For the albiceleste
But how many players changed the history of a sport? In men’s tennis, Federer himself, the Spanish Rafael Nadal and the Serbian Novak Djokovic have been doing it for almost two decades, breaking all the records of the last century. Yacaré, for its part, left its trademark on March 8, 2015, when it defeated Brazil’s João Souza 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5), 5-7, 5-7 and 15-13. , for the first round of the Davis Cup, in Buenos Aires.
The Davis began implementing a tiebreaker in the fifth set since 2016.
Three years later, in 2019, another substantial change would be introduced, going to be played only one week a year and with matches to the best of three sets instead of five, further reducing the slim margin of someone exceeding Mayer’s record in the future.
Other indelible victories for the albiceleste include his exploits in Great Britain 2016 (cement) against Daniel Evans, by 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 and 6-4, giving him the pass to his fifth final to Argentina; Israel 2014 (cement), when he won his two games as team number one; and Sweden 2010 (folder, the fastest surface of the circuit), where he overwhelmed the surprise letter of the locals, the former 9th in the world Joachim Johansson, by 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 and 6-4.
Page turn
Of all the professional tournaments, the Yacaré could not participate in only two categories: the Masters that brings together, at the end of each year, the eight best of the circuit, and the Olympic Games, whose limit of four singles and two double pairs per country He left it at the gates of London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 (in both he had a sufficient ranking, 62nd and 85th, but the quota had already been filled by four better-ranked compatriots).
A longing that will remain in the inkwell but that is dwarfed by the, until now, only Davis in the Argentine showcase, where Mayer’s claw was fundamental, and holds a title that not even Guillermo Vilas (the best Latin American in history ) nor the Legion headed by David Nalbandian and Guillermo Coria (both former 3rd in the world) could conquer.
Yacaré retires with a record of 179 victories and 197 individual defeats, 94 and 123 in doubles and ten years among the 100 best in the world (2009 to 15 and 2017 to 19). On Thursday, the ATP circuit fired him as a “real player and no set phrases.” Nothing more certain.
