MONTEVIDEO (AP) — Diego Forlán was one of the best forwards of his generation and could have been satisfied with his extraordinary career as a professional soccer player.
By the time he retired in 2010, Forlán had played for Manchester United, Atlético Madrid and Inter Milan. He was awarded the best player at the 2010 World Cup and shared the lead in the scoring charts at the tournament in South Africa. He won a Copa América with Uruguay, the first continental crown in 16 years, scoring two goals in the final.
At 45 years old, Forlán changed the ball for the racket. This Wednesday, he will make his debut as a professional tennis player when he takes to the clay court at the Uruguay Open — a tournament on the ATP Challengers circuit — to play a doubles match.
After the announcement that he was hanging up his boots in 2019, Forlán followed in the footsteps of his father, the footballer-turned-tennis player Pablo Forlán, to give life to a dream that had been put on hold. Since then, he rescued his old passion for the racket and went on to compete in the Masters amateur tournaments in his country. Now, he will make his professional debut thanks to a ‘wild card’ – an invitation card from the organizers – to compete in his first ATP championship.
“I am a former soccer player trying to play tennis,” he told The Associated Press after finishing a preparatory match at the Carrasco Lawn Tennis Club in Montevideo.
It was on the clay courts of this club, located in the exclusive Carrasco neighborhood of the Uruguayan capital, that the former American champion and winner of two golden boots in Spain took his first steps as a tennis player, a passion that occupied a special place during all his adolescence.
“Diego has been playing tennis since he was 10 years old or younger. At one point he had both careers a little at the same time, until he was 14, 15 years old,” Enrique Pérez Cassarino, coach of the former soccer player in his new adventure in tennis, recalled in an interview with AP.
Despite the brilliant career and mastery that she has always demonstrated with the ball on her foot — encouraged by the legacies of her grandfather, father and brother, all renowned soccer players who brought soccer into their home — tennis was always part of her DNA. .
“I enjoy it a lot, I love having the possibility, like on a day like today, to come and play tennis in this beautiful club, where I grew up, I spent my entire childhood. The truth is that it is a privilege,” Forlán told the AP.
Between November 11 and 17, the Carrasco Lawn Tennis Club will become the venue for the Uruguay Open, the most important men’s professional tennis tournament in the South American country.
It will be on court 10, where he usually trains often, where Forlán will compete in the doubles category with the Argentine Federico Coria as a partner. “I want to have fun, come here, enter this field, with a lot of people, friends, family, acquaintances. “I’m going to go in and enjoy it,” he explained.
Forlán is clear that, despite his talent, his passion for tennis and his football career “are very different things.” For this reason, he assures that the main objective he has with the racket is to have fun. “It is a privilege, a luxury, a gift,” he explained during the official presentation of the contest this week.
In that sense, he highlighted that, during his adolescence, he always trained both football and tennis – “in reality he trained a lot more tennis than football” – but finally he opted for the ball and the grass. ”If I had to choose between one or the other, I chose football. “The choice was always football over tennis.”
In the most popular sport in the world, the Uruguayan starred in an outstanding career and has an enviable track record, including fourth place in the 2010 World Cup.
He has paid some dividends as an amateur tennis player. Since making his debut on the International Tennis Federation veterans circuit in July 2023, he has played five tournaments. This year, he was an individual finalist in the MT400 in Asunción and, in doubles, he won the MT1000 in Lima.
Looking ahead to the start of the Challenger in Montevideo, Forlán has not made sudden changes to his practice routine, since “he normally plays every day or four times a week,” explained his coach. But both have intensified technical training, since the particularities of the sport are relatively new for the former soccer player.
“Diego is very solid at the backcourt level, he is very physical and what he has done lately by being able to dedicate more time is to start polishing game situations such as closing plays, how to be more aggressive,” said Pérez Cassarino. “Obviously all of this takes a process, a time and mainly a number of games that he obviously has not played because he has not dedicated himself.”
