Former Top 10 player Diego Schwartzman retired from professional tennis after he went down in straight sets to Spain’s Pedro Martinez in the second round of the Argentina Open in front of his home crowd in Buenos Aires on Thursday.
World No. 386 Schwartzman, ranked as high as eighth in 2020, had stunned seventh seed and last year’s runner-up Nicolas Jarry of Chile 7-6(10), 4-6, 6-3 in the first round.
However, the local wildcard lost 6-2, 6-2 to World No. 39 Martinez. His final match was attended by Argentine tennis greats Gabriela Sabatini and Guillermo Coria.
The 32-year-old Schwartzman had announced in May last year that he will retire from the sport in the Argentine capital.
Nicknamed ‘El Peque,’ Schwartzman was one of the shortest players on the ATP Tour at 5’7”. He won four titles with the biggest of them coming at an ATP 500 event in Rio de Janeiro in 2018.
He best result at a Grand Slam also came on clay – at the French Open in 2020 where he lost to Rafael Nadal, the eventual champion, in the semifinals.
In an emotional first-person essay on atptour.com, Schwartzman wrote, ”I have a small body, but it gave the biggest players in our history bad moments.
Reflecting on his career, he said, “Something a lot of people spoke about was my height, 170 centimetres. I didn’t like that during my career, because many times when I was playing good tournaments, everyone was asking me how I did it and how I was going to win the next match.
“I had to work so hard off the court so that my opponents did not feel I had less power or my movements were shorter or anything. For sure I know that height is a very important thing playing tennis. But more than 50 per cent the way you win matches comes from what you do away from the court.”
Content Source: sportstar.thehindu.com