Diego Schwartzman will be the main reference of a delegation of 11 Argentine tennis players who from this Sunday will play the Roland Garros tennis open, the second Grand Slam of the year whose great attractions are the Serbian Novak Djokovic and the multiple Spanish champion Rafael Nadal, plus the threatening presence of his youthful compatriot Carlos Alcaraz, while among the ladies stands out the devastating Polish Iga Swiatek.
As for the Argentines, there will be a total of 11 tennis players in the singles draw, a mark not seen since the booming 2009 edition of “La Legión”. Seven entered directly through their ranking, Schwartzman, Sebastián Báez, Federico Coria, Federico Delbonis, Francisco Cerúndolo, Tomás Etcheverry and Facundo Bagnis, another two went through the classification, Santiago Rodríguez Taverna and Camilo Ugo Carabelli, and a couple more entered as “lucky loser “: Juan Ignacio Londero and Pedro Cachin.
In this context, the “Peque” (16) will play this Sunday in the second turn of court number 6 against the Russian Andrey Kuznetsov (227), Ugo Carabelli (154), will face the Russian Aslan Karatsev (39) in the third turn of the day on court 12 and Londero (141) will play to a full stadium against the tennis player of the moment, the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz (6) in a match scheduled in the fourth turn of the Philippe Chatrier central court. The remaining Argentine representatives will begin their participation on Monday.
In ladies there will be no Argentine presence, because Rosario Nadia Podoroska is injured and inactive, while Paula Ormaechea lost in the initial round of qualifying. Meanwhile, in doubles there will be Horacio Zeballos, Máximo González and Andrés Molteni, all three with foreign teammates.
As for the men’s draw, the great attraction will be in the duel between Novak Djokovic, reigning champion, and Rafael Nadal, 13-time winner of the contest, who due to chance were included in the upper part of the draw. This implies that if the logic is given with the results in the initial rounds, Djokovic will face Nadal in the quarterfinals and the winner would play in a possible semifinal against Alcaraz, the new phenomenon of world tennis, who at 19 years old already won. four titles this season.
In the ladies’ box, the Polish Iga Swiatek, number one in the world, is the great favorite to keep the title she won in the 2020 edition. The tennis player born in Warsaw 20 years ago, who will debut against the Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko (121 ), won the tournaments in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart and Rome this year, and is undefeated in 28 matches between those titles and two matches in the Billie Jean King Cup.
Her main rivals will be the Czech Barbora Krejcikova (2), who is defending the title and will debut against the French Diane Parry (96), and the Romanian Simona Halep (19), Roland Garros champion in 2018 and with a first round against Croatian Ana Konjuh (66).
