‘Best Jewish tennis player’ takes on Wimbledon

LUKE ALFRED

Ranked 24th by tournament organisers, on Tuesday afternoon he beat the Durban-born Australian, Matthew Ebden on Court 15, taking the first of four sets 6-4.

Ebden broke serve in Schwartzman’s first service game of the second set to go into a 3-0 lead after twice holding serve of his own, eventually winning the second set 6-3.

But Schwartzman won the third set 6-3, and the fourth at a canter (6-2) to reach the second round.

Called by some “the best Jewish tennis player in the world”, Schwartzman has recently begun to find his range on grass, a surface upon which he has played precious little.

Clay, his preferred surface, is traditionally where he has played his best tennis, but his game has expanded as he becomes more experienced. “I start to think I can do well here,” he said in slightly broken English at Queens a couple of weeks ago, where he eventually lost in the quarter-finals to the big-serving Russian, Daniil Medvedev, 6-2, 6-2.

Schwartzman’s story unfolds like a modern-day fairytale. The vertically-challenged son of poor parents, Ricardo and Silvana, Diego was born in 1992, the youngest of four siblings.

Perhaps hoping for similarly big things, Silvana christened him after Diego Maradona, the famous Argentine footballer.

At a young age, his sporting passion alternated between soccer and tennis, but his mother sensed his talents might be better suited to tennis when he played “tennis” against the walls of their kitchen by using a soup spoon as a makeshift racquet. “He never wanted to play with a junior racquet – it always had to be a big racquet,” Silvana, a decent former tennis player herself, told the ATP website last February. “He played soccer as well, but the things he was capable of doing in tennis were out of the ordinary.”

Although Diego was talented and plucky, life in the Schwartzman home was tough. Silvana’s clothing and jewellery company went broke before Diego reached his teens, and his parents were often forced to go without meals. To make ends meet, Silvana sold inspirational bracelets and bangles in the fight against cancer and AIDS at Diego’s junior tournaments.

Such was his precocious talent that he turned professional aged 17, although he was always hampered by his size. At 5 foot 7 (1.7m) there was to be no booming first serve and big volley game for Schwartzman, sometimes known as “el peque” or shorty to his friends.

Instead, he had to fashion a ballsy game big on heart and tenacity, trusting that his instinct and temperament would stand him in good stead.

While he can’t compete with the literal giants of the game like his Argentine compatriot, Juan Martín del Potro, who stands just under 2m tall in his stockinged feet, Schwartzman is not only tenacious but deft.

In his run to the quarterfinals of the French Open last year, he beat South Africa’s Kevin Anderson in the fourth round, coming from two sets to love down to take the match in a shade under four hours.

In the process of beating Anderson, Schwartzman, wearing his trademark back-to-front cap, played some exquisite lobs, and was his normal pugnacious self with his returns, a key feature of his game. A sequence of play on the ATP website shows Anderson rush to the net before Schwartzman lobs him with breath-taking precision, the long-legged South African scampering back (but failing) to retrieve the ball to rousing cheers from the crowd.

As a result of beating Anderson, Schwartzman was drawn against Rafael Nadal in the Roland-Garros quarters, going down to the Spaniard in four sets after taking the first in a rain-interrupted match.

The loss to Nadal was not unexpected, but did represent a milestone in Schwartzman’s burgeoning career: he had reached the quarterfinals of his third consecutive grand slam.

In all other respects, Schwartzman comes across as an ordinary lad. His Facebook page is full of photos of weddings, departures to overseas tournaments with his coach, and snaps showing him with the replica jersey of Boca Juniors, his favourite local football club. He apparently enjoys asado, or Argentine barbecue on his infrequent visits home, and has also been known to impress people with his skills as a juggler.

Perhaps the best thing about him, though, is his love of the big stage, and his quirky sense of humour. At the Laver Cup opening event in Chicago last September, he introduced the lanky John Isner as his twin brother. The crowd whooped with delight as Isner, a full foot taller than Schwartzman, came up on stage, revealing how much taller than Schwartzman he really was.

Amidst clapping and gasps of delight, he promptly bent down to give “el peque” a big hug.