Tomás Etcheverry wanted to continue dreaming at Roland Garros, but Alexander Zverev woke him up and left him out of the semifinals of the French Grand Slam. Equally, the platense – who made an impressive tournament and showed that he is to fight important things – was cheered by Philippe Chatrier and the German himself gave him a nice word, predicted a huge future and compared his tennis with that of a great Argentine tennis.
"He's playing amazing tennis. He reminds me a lot of (Juan Martin) Del Potro, for the way he plays and the way he hits the drive, especially, "said Sascha, who knows what it is to face and be beaten by that hammer that had the tandilense in his right.
Zverev played twice against Del Potro and lost both: in Shanghai 2017 and Acapulco 2018. This Wednesday, in his first match against Etcheverry, the memories of those duels against Delpo returned to his memory. Especially in that second, which the Argentine took with authority.
"He's an incredible player and very young," Zverev said. "If he keeps playing like that he's going to be in the quarterfinals here much more often, for sure. But I also think he can be top 10 and win big tournaments. He proved it here. I wish him the best, hopefully he can continue like this."
Shortly after the elimination, Del Potro himself was one of the first to celebrate Tomy's impressive performance in Paris.
"Big Tomy! Congratulations on an incredible tournament!!!", wrote the tandilense on his Twitter account.
Etcheverry was the great "surprise" of this Roland Garros. And it is worth saying surprise in quotes, because the 23-year-old platense had landed in Paris at the best moment of his career and with a lot of confidence.
In the French capital, he reached the quarterfinals with victories against Jack Draper, Alex De Minaur (18th seed), Borna Coric (15th) and Yoshihito Nishioka (27th). He did so without dropping sets (only Djokovic reached that instance with the same condition) and became the first non-seeded player to get into the top eight without losing a partial since Uruguayan Marcelo Filippini in 1999. And he made sure to climb to 32nd place in the ranking, his best position, and be the second Argentine placed, behind Francisco Cerúndolo.
Zverev halted his impressive career. But the defeat could not overshadow all the positive and good that Tomy did in Bois de Boulogne.
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