Tomás Etcheverry does not want to wake up from the dream of Roland Garros 2023. The 23-year-old from La Plata - who had arrived in Paris with just one match won in Grand Slams, in January in Australia - got into the top eight of the French Major on Monday and on Wednesday will seek the pass to the semifinals against the German Alexander Zverev, 22nd seed, in the most important match of his career.
The German – a semifinalist last year, when he had to retire in that instance against Nadal due to a very serious ligament injury in his right ankle – will be a major test for the Argentine. But Tomy warned that he is very confident. And not only because he is playing "the best tennis" of his life, as he acknowledged after his victory in the second round against Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka. If not also because he has been preparing for this tournament since the first time he hit a ball. He, like many Argentines, had to row many times against the current to reach this great present. And he knows what it is to overcome difficult moments and great challenges, as is clear by reviewing five moments that marked his life and career.
The Christmas gift that aroused passion
Born in La Plata on July 18, 1999, Etcheverry did not inherit his family's passion for tennis, but fell in love with the sport after his parents – Fernando and Maria Lia, the two lawyers – gave him a special gift at Christmas.
"They gave me a set that is a stick that digs into the sand and has a thread with a tennis ball tied to it. The idea is to hit the ball with a paddle. It is played a lot on the beach. We were in Cariló and my dad always tells me that I spent all that summer playing alone, every day, four hours hitting the ball. When we came back from that vacation, they took me to the little tennis school and that's where everything started. I loved tennis and never stopped again," the platense told Clarín a few years ago.
The talent soon appeared and Tomy became one of the most outstanding of his litter. As a junior, he reached 12th place in the ITF world rankings and played Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2016. He started playing Future tournaments – now ITF World Tour – in 2014, when he was just 15 years old. He won three, two in 2018 and one in 2019. At the end of 2016, he won his first ATP point. And in October 2020, after the resumption of the circuit, he faced a tour of Europe with the Cerúndolo brothers, in which he began to add his first great results in Challengers.
From prison in Germany to quarantine in Argentina
After finishing in 2020 – the season in which he played his first Challenger final, in September, in Sibiu (Romania) – he continued to grow in 2021. In June he broke the barrier of the top 200 and in August, after stringing together four very good challengers (two titles, a final and a semis) he got into the top 150. But at the beginning of September he experienced a very ugly situation in Europe, when he was arrested in Germany and deported for having exceeded the limit of permanence in the European Union.
"After playing in Banja Luka had to go to Poland and had to cross through Germany. At the airport, when they asked me for my passport, they took me away from the line of passengers and I was alone. I didn't understand anything about the language and everything that was going on. I was very afraid. There were those of migrations but at one point I saw that military police personnel approached. Some time passed and, between English and German, they explained to me that I had exceeded the time I could be in countries of the European Economic Community, which was 90 days, because it had been reduced by the pandemic. That they had to deport me. And I panicked. I made a mistake because I thought that since I had gone to play the US Open in the middle, the count was interrupted but it was not like that," he told the newspaper El Día de La Plata at the time.
He was detained for 24 hours in a police station in Köln, Germany, until the efforts of the ATP managed to get him released. "They treated me well but I felt like a criminal. As soon as they released me, I took the first plane and came to Argentina. I found a flight leaving Turkey I was eleven hours waiting for the flight. Time didn't go by anymore: I slept on the floor and I was still afraid."
On his return, he tested positive for coronavirus in a test they did when he arrived in Ezeiza. "It was another surprise. During my stay in Europe and the United States I had endless swabs, all negative. I was transferred in a special taxi to a hotel in Buenos Aires, where I was isolated alone in a room for ten days," he said.
The worst moment of his life
Etcheverry started 2022 very well and in April, after playing the final at the Challenger in Mexico, he got into the top 100 for the first time. In the following months he gradually rose in the ranking and began to play more and more ATP tournaments. In September, in the indoor folder of Tel Aviv, he got the best victory of his career (so far): 6-2, 6-7 (0-7) and 6-4 against the Russian Aslan Karatsev, sixth seed of the contest. It was a celebration more sad than joyful, because it came days after the death of his sister Magalí, who died at age 32 after battling breast cancer. "She fought it like a lioness until the end," he said excitedly after dedicating the triumph to her.
The platense transformed the pain into strength and motivation and, from that moment, celebrates each match won by raising his arms and eyes to the sky. "I asked for strength from my sister, who always helps me from above," he said on Monday, after beating Nishioka in Paris. "I said please, help me and I got an ace."
New coach, new approach
A few months before that very hard blow, when he was close to breaking into the top 70 and already had three Challengers titles in his cabinets, Etcheverry had made a decision that ended up being key to the leap in quality that hit this season. At the end of July, he ended his professional relationship with Carlos Berlocq, who had trained him for two years, and added to his team a new coach, Walter Grinovero, who had had as pupils Agustín Calleri, Machi González and Francisco Cerúndolo, among others.
The contribution of Wally – who grabbed Tomas Berdych and Juan Martín Del Potro to mold his new player – transformed Tomy into a better tennis player. "The moment I started working with him, he insisted that I should change technical aspects in all my shots because I had to play much more aggressive," said the platense a few days ago.
"I knew I needed to improve the serve and take time away from my rivals, get on track and dominate, take more risks. I have also worked a lot on a mental level, not only in terms of psychology of managing emotions on and off the court, but also with my coach in terms of understanding this sport and interpreting match moments. That's the key to my success," he added.
The Roland Garros of your dreams
Etcheverry arrived in Paris with two ATP finals played (Santiago de Chile in February and Houston in April) and as the 49th ranked player. With much more experience in the backpack: this year, for example, he played and stole a set from Andy Murray in the first round of Indian Wells; and made Novak Djokovic sweat in the first set of the clash they played in the second instance of Rome. And with the illusion of making a good performance at Roland Garros, that Grand Slam that I dreamed of winning since I was little.
He strung together victories against Jack Draper (by abandonment), Alex De Minaur (18th), Borna Coric (15th) and Nishioka (27th) to become the 16th Argentine to reach -at least once- the quarterfinals of the "great" Frenchman. He did it without dropping sets, something that only one of the other seven quarterfinalists, Novak Djokovic (he lost the first in the duel he won against Karen Khachanov to advance to the semis).
Against Zverev, he will seek to be the tenth to get into the top four, to put his name next to huge albicelestes rackets of the likes of Guillermo Vilas and Gastón Gaudio (the only two champions), David Nalbandian, Guillermo Coria or Juan Martín Del Potro. "I will need my best tennis against Zverev, but I am playing very well and I arrive with confidence," warned Tomy, the great surprise of Roland Garros 2023, who does not want to wake up from sleep in Paris.
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