ATP Finals 2024: Latin America and the distant dream of building another tennis champion | Tennis | Sports

From Argentina, in words for the newspaper The NationJuan Martín del Potro painfully opens, the giant who managed to put fear into the bodies of the three giants in the era of absolute tyranny. “I am still in the process of understanding what life is like without tennis, because it is difficult for me, it is the truth. Today it is still difficult for me,” admits the Argentine, tortured by injuries: wrists thrown into the air and kneecaps in pieces, operating rooms and more and more doctors; an endless series of vicissitudes that ended up consuming a tennis player who went far but who, if he had not been so punished by the physical inclemency, could perfectly well have earned a more privileged space in the history of his sport. He reached third place in the rankinghe won the Davis Cup and left with a great title in his hands, the 2009 US Open; precisely, the last great title achieved by a Latin American player.

From his decline, from the subsequent ten years of threats and suffering of the giant, retired in 2022 because his body told him enough, a kind of wasteland. It produces Latin America, but the possibility of finding another champion seems distant today. There is no shortage of presence among the best hundred – six Argentines, two Chileans and one Brazilian – but Del Potro went as far as he could and his success is remembered more and more from the past. He paraded for the last time in the master meeting in the 2013 edition, stopped by Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the group stage, and from there, only an isolated spark, that of Diego Schwartzman in 2020. The Buenos Aires native did not make the cut either. initial and now dominates Europe with an iron fist, despite the fact that this year a couple of exceptions have leaked into the photo, those of the American Taylor Fritz and the Australian Alex de Miñaur. There is no trace of South America.

The fan longs for the old days, not to mention Guillermo Vilas, winner of the Masters in ’74, Melbourne, and in the places of greatest luster: twice he triumphed in the major from Australia (1978 and 1979), one at Roland Garros (1977) and another in New York (1977). Then came the lightning of the Ecuadorian Andrés Goméz y los Ríos, Gaudio or Coria, and of course the footprint of the Brazilian Spring Kuerten, who reached the top, took over the arena until a Martian named Rafael landed and was also crowned master; It happened in Lisbon, 2000, prevailing over Andre Agassi himself. Later, before Del Potro’s ascension, a formidable competitor like David Nalbandian, the last Latin American maestro, took up the baton in 2005, Shanghai.

“I surprised everyone,” he said then, after defeating Federer 6-7 (4), 6-7 (11), 6-2, 6-1 and 7-6 (3), after four hours and 33 minutes. He was 23 years old and broke a sequence of 35 consecutive victories for the legendary Swiss, whose schemes were blown up. Three years earlier, the Argentine had lost the Wimbledon final to Lleyton Hewitt. “What I would like now is for the season not to end. I want to play more tournaments. My morale is through the air,” the winner then transmitted, superior in the group stage to Ivan Ljubicic and Guillermo Coria, and also to Nikolai Davydenko in the semifinals. Nalbandian retired in 2013, aware that his time was up with Federer, Djokovic and Nadal on the mat, and then he took up driving in rallies. From him, a truncated dream, that of Del Potro, and the flash of Schwartzman.

“I wanted to be number one. And I felt like I could be. But I broke my knee. I always had that… that thorn that well, I don’t know, what happened happened for a reason and it was a learning experience. But, later, I more than fulfilled the expectations I had with tennis and for me it was an honor to have spent my career alongside Novak, Rafa, Roger, Wawrinka, Murray, Ferrer. I’m going to sleep peacefully saying: ‘I’m done, what more can I ask from tennis?’, the man from Tandil answers. The Nationwhile the option of touching glory again is seen as more and more difficult because there is no figure project in the making. Without him on the scene, the last real hope, a limited landscape is projected for a tennis that observes the present with resignation and relives the past with both pleasure and nostalgia.