There was a certain tension in the atmosphere. It was not for less. The press conference organized by the Argentine Tennis Association (AAT) to make the official announcement of the Olympic team that will be in the Paris 2024 Games seemed to have only one attractive focus: knowing the reasons for the controversial decision to leave out Horacio Zeballos , the best Argentine doubles player of all time and the first man to reach number one in an ATP world ranking – he achieved it in May -.
The news had gained significance after the advance of this medium, which confirmed twelve days ago the resounding absence of the left-hander. During the officialization, the explanations that Guillermo Coria, the captain of the Olympic delegation, could offer, were then awaited.
“The first thing I want to do is clarify that it was always decided that four singles players and two doubles players were going to go. For several months everyone knew what the conditions were,” he launched, at the beginning, while confirming that it was not easy to disarm “a consolidated couple” like the one formed by Andrés Molteni (18th) and Máximo González (20th).
Leader of the world doubles ranking until two weeks ago – today he is in second position -, Zeballos was relegated due to the captain’s unchanged position of carrying four singles players and prioritizing a pair that, although it has its sporting merits, does not orbit the level that The 39-year-old from Mar del Plata reached out in recent months along with his teammate Marcel Granollers – summoned, quite logically, for the Spanish squad.
Trained at the Edison Lawn Tennis in Mar del Plata, Zeballos has just reached nothing less than the semifinals of Roland Garros, in the same place where the tennis discipline will be played in Paris 2024. Weeks before he had won his 21st title – record for national tennis in doubles – at the Masters 1000 in Rome.
The “coherent” logic with which Coria made the decision, in his own words, loses a certain plausibility when the speech does not seem concomitant with what is happening in reality, beyond the fact that he did express, on repeated occasions, that the determination was “one hundred percent sporty.” Molteni and González are having a good season with five titles, but so far this year they have not achieved victories against the best pairs on the tour, while Zeballos – who would have formed a competitive tandem with any singles player in the fight for medals – is a regular of the final stages in the most prestigious tournaments in the world.
“You are there to make decisions and you lean toward what you believe is best for the country. We are convinced that they are the best we can take,” the captain said, with some annoyance at the persistence of the journalists. Beyond The duo of Molteni and González, the former number three in the ranking, made official the singles players Sebastián Báez (18th), Francisco Cerúndolo (27th), Mariano Navone (31st), Tomás Etcheverry (32nd), who complete the roster of a male branch that could have a maximum of six pieces -Cerúndolo and Etcheverry will make up the second pair- on the female side there will be Nadia Podoroska (65th) and Lourdes Carlé (86th); mixed doubles between González and Podoroska – will be defined by ranking.
“Unfortunately Horacio could not be in two important Davis Cup series – during the Olympic cycle – which was when Molteni entered against Finland,” said Coria, who also maintained the position of never having hesitated to break the four-man scheme. singles and the established duo. The decision, however, clashes with an old statement he made before the last Davis Cup series.
Last January, before the victory against Kazakhstan in Rosario, the Magician announced that he was nominating Zeballos himself to make him eligible for the Olympic Games: the Mar del Plata native, according to the regulations of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), needed one more call-up to be part of the delegation in Paris 2024.
“In this series we summon Horacio Zeballos for two reasons. Firstly, because he needs to play a series to meet the organization’s requirement and be eligible for the Olympic Games. In this way the three (González and Molteni) have the same chances of being in Paris. Beyond that, Horacio obviously deserves it because he is 5th in the world, he has been having incredible results, with a Masters final, and they know Machi a lot,” the captain explained then.
Two weeks later, Zeballos himself had to withdraw due to an injury to his left shoulder, a situation that did not change his eligibility because he had been available. He even made the usual formal presentation to the ITF together with the AAT, which players usually make when they do not meet the requirements. Why did Coria call him up if, according to his own speech, he never considered the alternative of taking out a singles player or breaking up the Molteni-González duo?
“We didn’t see it as a possibility to put Zeballos with a single player. Those of us who play tennis know that they do not guarantee a medal because they did not play together; nor the doubles couple. Why would we take a chance on Navone with the year he has? With Tommy Etcheverry, the same thing,” he deepened. Navone has just had a meteoric rise: he rose, in six months, from 125th place to 29th, a ranking with which he relegated Etcheverry to fourth place. Coria was trapped between his words The circuit is dynamic and the options change week by week: no one expected the growth of the man from Nueve de Julio or the arrival of Zeballos to the top.
Suspicions surrounding the decision hovered for days: there were those who ventured that perhaps it would have had a double cost for Coria to leave out one of the three pieces – Etcheverry, Molteni and González – that inhabit the portfolio of players represented by the Summa Sports agency, whose high-weight reference is none other than Mariano Zabaleta, the vice president of the AAT, absent from the official press conference.
The one who was present, despite his obligations as head of the Córdoba Sports Agency, was President Agustín Calleri, who was in charge of dispelling, in his own way, the controversy due to the apparent conflict of interest: “We always stayed on the sidelines . I support Guillermo’s decision. We do not get involved in setting up the squad. “There was always talk that there were going to be four singles and two doubles.”
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2024-06-26 03:01:00
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