NEW YORK – Diego Schwartzman got a treat he didn’t expect. He played his last Grand Slam match in an iconic stadium like the US Open Grandstand, and received a tribute from the organisers.
Now, the Argentine is looking to the future. ‘I want to help tennis in Latin America by organising tournaments,’ in this interview with Diego Schwartzman, he confessed to CLAY that took place in the Wimbledon qualies, after a very different defeat to the one in New York. He said goodbye to London without tributes or large crowds; in Queens he did it with the affection of a full stadium, the recognition of his rival, Gael Monfils, and gifts from the USTA.
In this interview he talked about the new stage in his life, and how he wants to help tennis in his region to regain the ground it has lost in recent years on the global stage. ‘We are working to have a tournament in that week where the ATP in Cordoba was; it won’t be a 250, but we hope to have another good event,’ said Diego Schwartzman in this interview, who will play his last professional tournament in Buenos Aires in February.
Interview with Diego Schwartzman
– It’s over…
– Unfortunately, that gas tank has run out. Tennis forces you to maintain a very high level of patience and consistency to do well. The commitment to the routine must be very strong and I wasn’t having it, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to stay because I’ve always been a player who has loved tennis. I love what I was doing, but if I could do it well and with the intensity it takes. To do it in with machine workings at its 50%… I really prefer to stay at home and enjoy it there.
– What has it been like since you announced your retirement?
– There have been a lot of emotions, yes, but at the same time it feels very good, I’m happy, I started to enjoy being at home a bit more, I also started to look back a bit and look at the achievements I made in my career. I was also able to make the decision myself, to understand my body, to understand my head and to know that I had been exhausted for a while and that I couldn’t sustain what I had always done in a very good way. I preferred to take some time off, to continue playing some tournaments that I like but already preparing for the future.
– A lot has happened in your life. You proposed to your girlfriend and you are going to get married next year.
– That makes me very happy, because it’s also a new stage. I think that little by little I’m closing stages and starting new ones and that’s part of life. The truth is that the way I trained and prepared myself all these years was very radical, I stopped doing a lot of things that I could have done, that surely would not have led me to what I was in tennis, the things I was able to achieve in my own goals and those of the team that I had. So the truth is that over time that gave me a lot and today I want to be able to start enjoying other things and I know that if I enjoy them I could not sustain what I did on the court, so I do not see much sense.
– Do you want to have children?
– Yes, but a bit further down the line. Yes, yes, we have plans to take it step by step, to enjoy it together, to make a path together with Euge and to enlarge the family, but there is still a long way to go. As you said, there are a lot of things together and now we have to let time pass.
– What are the most special moments of your career?
– I had several moments, I had a lot of regularity during different years. When I look back, there were a lot of moments where I felt amazing, confident and having fun. 2020 was very special, because it was a mixture of very strange situations. On one hand, we were in the middle of a pandemic, and I’ll never forget that I couldn’t stop winning matches. That year and a half still ended up exhausting me, it was very tiring.
– Was there any reaction to the announcement of your retirement that surprised you?
– Many people ask me if it is because of an injury that I am retiring and I never got injured, I answer them that it was my mind that got injured. I enjoyed a lot, everything I achieved was much more than I imagined, tennis gave me much more than I expected and on that side the players also know it, they understand it, those who are close and those who are a little further away and saw me, know that it could have generated all that exhaustion and that it is a wise decision. I think there are also many who in the end don’t have the courage to take that final step of something they have been feeling, and I always wanted it to be my decision in the end.
– You are one of those who have raised your voice against the decisions taken by the ATP that have been detrimental to South America, have you received any feedback from that?
– Yes, in fact we are slowly trying, working, to see if we can have a tournament in that week when the ATP of Cordoba was. The idea is to have a good tournament that week, it won’t be an ATP 250, but we hope that before Buenos Aires there will be a good event. Hopefully that can happen and throughout the year I would love to be able to help tennis in the region by organising professional tournaments of all kinds. I think that giving opportunities to players is obvious, coming for example from an Argentinean, Horacio de la Peña, that the opportunities pay off, and today we see a lot of players who entered the Top 100 and are playing in the best tournaments for having competed in more tournaments in the region a couple of years ago in the circuit that Horacio organised.
– It’s looking pretty uphill.
– It is difficult, let alone now, with the economic situation in which our countries live, it is difficult to generate that money. But I think that if the ATP makes an effort to understand the situation in the region and also understand the number of players in Chile, Peru, Argentina and all the neighbouring countries, Brazil? It is a strong region! So, I think we can find a way in which some private funds together with ATP can start to form tournaments and hopefully I can be part of that tomorrow, starting next year, helping to generate that kind of opportunities for the players. I would love to be there, I want to contribute to the organisation of tournaments. They’ve always helped me, so if I can help a little bit, that would be great.
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