It doesn't go any further.
Less than a month after the Italian-Argentine Luciano Darderi surprised the world with his overwhelming tennis to be crowned champion of the ATP 250 in Córdoba, after overcoming the qualification and beating Facundo Bagnis in the final, the tournament that has been held since 2019 in Polo
Deportivo Mario Alberto Kempes
died shortly after birth and will no longer be part of the South American tour.
This was confirmed by
Jorge Salkeld,
former Peruvian tennis player (he was 440 in the world in 1984) and vice president of
Octagon
, the American company that owned the extinct competition.
“Next year Córdoba will leave the calendar and what we have now will be maintained, which is Buenos Aires, Río and Santiago,”
Salkeld said in an interview with the Chilean newspaper La Tercera.
Like Darderi, who had only one victory on the big tennis circuit before his glorious week that allowed him to jump to the Top 100, the Córdoba tournament was the setting for other surprise coronations such as that of
Juan Ignacio Lóndero
in the inaugural edition or that of
Juan Manuel Cerúndolo
in 2021.
The Chilean Christian Garín
also lifted the trophy
in 2020, the Spanish
Albert Ramos
Vinolas
(2022) and
Sebastián Báez
last season.
A date chosen by South American tennis players in the run-up to the Argentina Open, and also by some Spaniards who get along well with the orange surface, quickly goes down in history.
Luciano Darderi, the last champion of the Córdoba Open.
Photo Twitter @CordobaOpen
While the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires called three Grand Slam champions such as
Carlos Alcaraz, Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic
and pushed hard to move to the 500 category, Córdoba could not attract those great figures of the racket who did play in the Lawn Tennis the following week, which resulted in a lack of public in the stands.
That is one of the main explanations for the loss of the Córdoba tournament, which is added to the high costs of installing the tubular stands in the
central court.
In this way, what was an open secret was confirmed yesterday with Salkeld's statements, although
the ATP has not yet issued an official statement.
The governing body of men's tennis had revealed its plans to make changes to the 2025 calendar. There is the intention to merge the ATP 250 to transform them into 500 and thus extend the duration of the Masters 1000 in Madrid, Rome, Cincinnati and Shanghai.
There are still no definitions in this regard, but one of the stops in our country can now be ruled out.
This is a significant loss for South American tennis in general, since this tour that occupied all of February in recent years was, and will continue to be to a lesser extent, an opportunity for the region's tennis players to manage to settle in the ranking and take clean and jerk for the rest of the season.
Córdoba will no longer be.
Buenos Aires, Rio and Santiago remain.