Alexander Zverev took a moment to pay a very nice tribute to retiring Diego Schwartzman, calling him “a giant of the sport.”
After announcing his retirement plans in May, the 32-year-old ended his professional tennis journey in front of his home fans in Buenos Aires this week.
During his career, the Argentine made a Grand Slam semifinal at the 2020 French Open – won five ATP titles – and reached a career-high ranking of No. 8 in the world.
Although Schwartzman’s small frame and body wasn’t really a great preposition to make it in tennis, he still overcame the odds and was one of the better players in the game for years.
And Zverev, who met the Argentine six times and won four of their meetings, acknowledged the 32-year-old’s great career.
“edieschwartzman you will always be a giant of this sport,” the German captioned his Instagram Story.
Alexander Zverev Instagram Story © Alexander Zverev/Instagram – Fair Use
Schwartzman won one match in his farewell
In the Buenos Aires first round, the former world No. 8 won a marathon against Nicolas Jarry 7-6 (10) 4-6 6-3 to clinch his first ATP win since 2023 Tokyo.
After the match, he admitted he didn’t expect to win.
A day later, he returned to the court and Pedro Martinez ousted him 6-2 6-2.
Following the loss, Schwartzman admitted he simply didn’t have enough to challenge Martinez and that he would have better if the Jarry match had been the last of his career.
“I went through so many emotions in the match against Jarry,” the 2020 French Open semifinalist said.
“I believe that match would have been the perfect ending to my career because I showed the best of my tennis, it will always be my last match in my mind.
“Today I wasn’t ready to maintain concentration, it was impossible to block out everything that would happen against an opponent like Pedro, who forced me to be very assertive and is in a very good form.
“In 20 minutes of the match, I saw it was impossible to win and started to dwell on it and become tense about what I was going to experience.”
Tennis World USA