New Delhi: Former World No.8 Diego Schwartzman retired from professional tennis career on Thursday following his exit in the second round of the Argentina Open against Spain’s Pedro Martinez with identical defeats 6-2, 6-2 at the Guillermo Vilas Stadium in Buenos Aires.
The 32-year-old brought an end to his 14-year career on the court after turning professional in 2010. It was a befitting last game in front of his home crowd, a decision he announced in May last year. He started the Argentina Open 2025 with a hard fought win against Chile’s Nicolas Jarry 7-6 (10), 4-6, 6-3 in the first round.
The current world-ranked 386 couldn’t find his moment against a higher-ranked opponent in Martinez. Even though he wasn’t control of the match for the major part, the home crowd didn’t left any amount of enthusiasm to encourage him between the rallies. They chanted his name with zeal and fervent when Martinez was inching closer to the win. It turned out to be an emotional moment for the Argentina player, who is also called as ‘El Peque’.
The last moments of El Peque’s career 🥲
Not a dry eye in the house as chants of ‘Diego, Diego’ resonated before match point…@dieschwartzman @ArgentinaOpen pic.twitter.com/qNysQrnszO
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) February 13, 2025
A felicitation ceremony was held to mark his farewell and a tribute video was played to cover his determined journey in the sport. Among the notable attendees present at the venue were Argentina’s tennis greats such as Gabriela Sabatini, Guillermo Coria, Juan Monaco, Gaston Gaudio apart from Schwartzman’s family members.
Schwartzman overcomes height challenge to achieve greatness
With a height of 5’7, Diego Schwartzman was considered to be one of the shortest players in the tennis arena, but he gave he showed top-notch game style against the best in the business. He cracked his best ranking of World No.8 in 2020. He has won four titles in his career with the ATP Tour 500 Rio Open (played on clay court) is the highest-ranked event won by the Argentine star.
His best performance in a Grand Slam event came at the 2020 French Open, where he made it to the semifinals before losing to the legendary Rafael Nadal.
“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,” Schwartzman was quoted as saying by atptour.com.
“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,” he added.
Diego Schwartzman, the former World No. 8, retired from professional tennis after his exit from the Argentina Open in front of home fans. Schwartzman’s career highlight was reaching the 2020 French Open semifinals other than winning four titles on the ATP Tour circuit. Tennis Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
