Diego Schwartzman’s gritty win is just a small snapshot of his unwavering career
Diego Schwartzman showed the world what the heart of a lion can doas he took down Dominic Thiem in an epic five sets. It was just one example of his gritty career.
Diego Schwartzman shocked the tennis world in Paris today with a five-set victory over Dominic Thiem that lasted over five hours. In a match where he had the upper hand from the very first point of the match, he was still considered the underdog as the match progressed. The captures his entire career: An underdog player grinding his way for years before finally breaking through the way he knows best.
On the surface, Schwartzman isn’t an overly special player. He stands at 5’7″ on a good day and doesn’t’ have the power or racket skills quite like some of his higher-ranked opponents on tour. What he has instead is the heart of a lion. He’s trademarked the grit-and-grind wins as his own rather than the highlight reel shots that fills social media. While he isn’t going to turn any heads without a big win, his roars were heard this morning.
We’ve heard this before but only on the flip side of the tennis coin. The three time career major quarterfinalist had put together some solid runs but couldn’t break through to that major semifinal his been vying for in the last ten years. It’s been mostly the standard for him, as he’s been swept under the rug in his pervious shots. His first came at the 2017 US Open, where he was deefeated handily by Pablo Carreno Busta. A 2018 French Open quarterfinal came against the same semifinal opponent he’s due to face in a couple days: Rafael Nadal. He was taken out in four sets and bookended that with another straight-sets loss in the quarters last year (to Nadal again in New York).
This week felt different, however. For starters, Schwartzman reached his first Masters 1000 final in Rome after taking down Rafael Nadal to advance to the semifinals . It shouldn’t have come off as much more than a fluke given his lack of Masters results prior to this. Just over a week later, the man standing only two inches taller than the shortest player in ATP Tour history put toether some more magic as the sky turned to black.
Dominic Thiem was having a rough week after winning his first Grand Slam last month in New York. He wasn’t 100% healthy, and while he’d gone through his first three rounds without dropping a set, his five-set maraton against Hugo Gaston in fourth round was indicative of his waning health. ‘El Peque’, as he’s affectionately called by many, did exactly what someone in position could do: probe and frustrate.
And that he did. He unleased a flurrry of skidding slices and dropshots that continually frustrated his good friend and opponent, enough to provoke his unraveling as the match progressed. Thiem’s grueling US Open run, paired with a short turnaround and uninspiring conditions in Paris (to say the least), couldn’t have don anything then put an immediate hold on his post-match recoveries down the stretch.
"“I’m not sad with my performance here [at] Roland Garros,” Thiem said to the press after the loss. “It was a pretty short time with the long trip home, jet lag and everything…[I] came here, played in pretty brutal conditions, I would say… I’m pretty happy about it."
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“I think at the end of this night I deserved to win.”
The heart of a lion will prevail despite everything. The 28-year-old Schwartzman is into his first major semifinal and there’s no stopping his rise. Whether or not he’s able to pull even with Nadal like he did this morning is still up in the air, but for now, the Argentinian is likely to jump into the top ten and is only going up from here, so watch out.