Schwartzman drops in category to return to being before: he will play the first challenger in seven years

Diego Schwartzman

is experiencing a difficult moment, tennis-wise.

El

can't find a way around his game and so far this season, he's only won two of the nine games he's played.

He couldn't even perform well in the South American tour of brick dust, in which he always got good results: he lost in his debut in Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Rio and Santiago de Chile.

Although his time in that last tournament left him feeling better and in the

in the initial round

and got his first win since the

.

He didn't make it further into the Californian desert because he ran into

, number four in the world, who surpassed him comfortably;

but wanting to continue working and not lose the progress of recent weeks, he decided to face a different challenge starting this Monday.

The porteño, ranked 38th, will play a 

tournament for the first time in almost seven years, since he accepted a special invitation to the

, a tournament in that category, which is held in Phoenix on hard courts and distributes 220 thousand dollars in prizes.

Thus, he will be able to continue competing in a "lost" week, which, otherwise, he would have to have devoted only to training, and he will have the chance to prepare his participation in the Miami Masters 1000 against good rivals, which will start on Wednesday the

. It is that the contest will have in the draw the Italian

(23rd in the world and another who received a 

after losing quickly in Indian Wells), the French

(also invited) and

(43rd), the Czech

(47th) and the Kazakh

(46th), among others.

To find Schwartzman's last participation in a challenger, you have to go back to the end of 2016. From November 14 to 20 of that year, Peque played a contest of that category in

, on brick dust.

He was ranked 58th in the ATP ranking and won the title - the eighth of his career - by beating Brazilian

6-4, 6-1 , then 103rd, in the final.

It was the closing of a season in which he had won his first title (at the beginning of May, in

) and played another final, in October, in

.

The following year, the porteño began the rise that led him to win another three titles (Rio de Janeiro 2018, Los Cabos 2019 and Buenos Aires 2021);

to defeat

, the undisputed King of brick dust, on his favorite surface, in Rome 2020;

to be a semifinalist at

that same year;

and to reach the eighth step of the world ranking.

And to remain, in addition, in the top 40 of the classification uninterruptedly since June 2017.

But the

entered a well.

Since his loss in the third round of the US Open against

, in September, he has accumulated a record of just two wins and 13 losses (counting the one he suffered in the last edition of the

, an exhibition tournament but which the ATP adds to their statistics).

After her passage through New York, she closed 2022 -in which she confessed that she suffered anxiety attacks- with six consecutive falls.

And at the start of this 2023, she has a 2-7 mark.

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Hours before his debut at the

-he said goodbye to the Spanish Bernabé Zapata-, the porteño told

: "I am training very well, but the difference perhaps is that I am not as confident as I was at key moments in the matches , when I was 4-4 or in a tie-break. In those moments when I stole points and won in uncomfortable situations. That's where a lot of confidence came from in my game. That's where I have to become strong again. We're always looking for solutions." .

"Today we are considering very short-term goals. Going into each game, making fewer mistakes, being more solid and feeling good again. Getting back to the good feelings," he added.

On Wednesday, after his celebration against Coria in his debut in the Californian desert, he commented: "I am happy because my last six months were not easy. I came out of the Top 20 after five years. They have been difficult times. But I am working hard, It's the only way I know how to do it. It's the only way I know how. And having these kinds of matches is very good for me right now." 

At 30 years old, the

wants to "be again".

And after a bittersweet time in Indian Wells -in which he barely reached the second round, but was able to win a game and played at a good level again-, he was not afraid to accept a different challenge and go down to the Challenger Tour, to continue adding minutes on the court, pace and, above all, confidence. 

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