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Professional tennis is a kind of traveling circus that has a different season every week. However, the same racket sport, but in an Olympic event, is very different. Accustomed to traveling around the circuit with the company of their families, coaches, physical trainers and/or physiotherapists, of routinely going from hotel to hotel with tournament cars at their disposal (at the ATP and WTA level, of course), the players live a different and enriching experience in the Olympic Games, sleeping in the Olympic Village and in contact with athletes from other disciplines. Gabriela Sabatini already said it about her debut in Seoul 1988: “My legs shook. It was something incredible.”
In a few weeks, from July 27 to August 4, tennis will be one of the great attractions of Paris 2024. It will be played on the iconic clay courts of Roland Garros, no less. And the Argentine team will bring eight representatives (in the next few hours it will be made official). Among men, the singlists Sebastian Baez (19th), Francisco Cerúndolo (27°), Mariano Navone (29°) and Tomas Etcheverry (31st), plus the double players Andrés Molteni (19th) and Maximo Gonzalez (20°). Among women, Nadia Podoroska and Maria Lourdes Carlé.
Captain Guillermo Coria and the Argentine Tennis Association driven by Agustín Calleri and Mariano Zabaleta They made a decision that makes noise and generates controversy: Horacio Zeballosthe best national doubles player in history, who on May 6 became the first Argentine to reach number 1 in the ATP Tour ranking…was not summoned. Incomprehensible from the sporting aspect.
The task of those responsible for each sport in the Olympic Games is, given the range of confirmed options, to name the athletes who have the greatest chance of winning a medal or diploma. Zeballos, current No. 2 in the world (shares position with his doubles partner, the Spanish Marcel Granollers) and recent Roland Garros semi-finalist, would encourage that possibility, both in men’s doubles and in mixed doubles (each player can act up to two categories). It seems very unwise to leave such a card out of the tournament. The decision, as he knew THE NATION, also attracted attention on the small table of official organizations linked to national Olympic sports. Granollers, Zeballos’ regular partner, will be one of Spain’s Olympic pieces along with Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, among others.
The Olympic event will have five competitions: men’s and women’s singles and doubles, plus mixed doubles. Each nation can take up to six male and six female players: “The player must have met the minimum requirement of participation in the Davis Cup or the BJK Cup during the Olympic cycle and be present in the series on a minimum of 2 occasions in that period. , as long as one of those is in 2023 or 2024. The ITF can hear appeals from players who have not met the requirement and rule that they are eligible for nomination taking into account factors such as injury.
Zeballos last played the Davis Cup in 2022However, he meets the eligibility criteria because last January he was summoned by Coria and announced by the AAT for the February series against Kazakhstan, in Rosario. “In this series we called Zeballos for two reasons. Firstly, because he needs to play a series to meet the organization’s requirement and be eligible for the Olympic Games. In this way, the three (González and Molteni) have the same chances of being in Paris. Beyond that, Horacio obviously deserves it because he is 5th in the world, he has been having incredible results, with a Masters final, and they know Machi a lot,” declared Coria, through a statement from the AAT on January 4. . Twenty days later, the Mar del Plata player’s withdrawal was announced due to “injury.” An appeal was later made to the ITF and was approved. That is From the regulations, Zeballos found no obstacles to compete in the next Olympic Games.
From the first moment Coria’s idea was to take four singles and two doubles to Paris 2024. But the circuit is very active, in six months everything can change and that is when the driver must react to the changes. The Navone case is the best example: it started the year being 125th, it grew abruptly in the ranking, it left Facundo Díaz Acosta (Pan American champion) out of competition for Paris 2024 and, even, in last Monday’s updated ranking it appeared as the third best Argentine (29th), running Etcheverry (31st) into fourth place. Zeballos was already the best national doubles player when the season started, being 5th. What did he do next, apart from reaching No. 1? He won the Italian Open in Rome (along with Granollers) without losing sets, played three finals (one of them, in Indian Wells) and reached four super elite semifinals, one Grand Slam (at the French Open) and three in Masters 1000 (Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid). The man from Mar del Plata was a protagonist in the best tournaments. Even so, he was not selected for the Olympic Games.
So without Zeballos, the second Argentine men’s doubles at Paris 2024 will probably be Cerúndolo-Etcheverry. The man from Buenos Aires and the man from La Plata played four tournaments together this season: they reached the quarterfinals in Rome but, before that, they fell in their debut in Monte Carlo, Miami and Australia.
Last year, Molteni/González had a very outstanding season, winning five titles (Cincinnati, one of them) and qualifying for the Masters tournament (they lost all three group matches). This year they won the Córdoba and Barcelona trophies, but so far they have not been able to beat any couple in the top 20.
After several days of uncertainty, it was only yesterday that Zeballos received the (bad) news from Coria. “I’m sad. I kept hoping to go to the Games. I was available, of course. But they are decisions. My tennis and family moment is so good that I don’t want anything to overshadow it. I have to look forward”Zeballos told LA NACION and apologized for not going deeper, at least for now.
It is logical to think that Zeballos should have played doubles in Paris 2024: together with a singles player (for this, due to ranking, Etcheverry had to be left out) or with one of the doubles players, whom he knows perfectly. With González, Onion He won the ATP in Buenos Aires 2019 and played two other finals, in addition to forming a team in the Davis Cup. With Molteni he won Atlanta 2016 and Buenos Aires 2018, in addition to sharing Interclube training for the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club. But Coria decided to support Etcheverry as the fourth singles player and also the couple that performed in the last three Davis Cup series (in the last Roland Garros, they also lost in the round of 16). The measure by Coria and the AAT generated surprise, crossed versions and, also, second readings.
González and Molteni made sporting merits to perform at Paris 2024, to a lesser extent than Zeballos. Both are represented by Summa, the agency in which Zabaleta, vice president of the AAT, is one of the main executives. The conflict of interest in which the former Tandil player is involved due to his multiple commercial tasks in the world of tennis without leaving his position in the Association constantly makes noise, but this does not seem to alter him or Calleri, the president. Etcheverry, who by regulation was the one who had to leave the team if Coria opted for three singles players, is also represented by Zabaleta’s agency.
In September 2022, in Bologna, before Argentina’s last match with Croatia, for the Davis group stage, Zeballos and Coria had an argument in the locker room, in which Calleri had to intercede (he is still the head of the AAT; he remains the longest in Córdoba due to his political position as president of the Córdoba Sports Agency). Apparently, that disagreement was clarified, but since then Zeballos has not returned to Davis.
Florencia Labat, current 3rd vice president of the AAT, is surely one of the people who most understands Zeballos’ disappointment for not going to Paris. As a player she enjoyed three Olympic Games (Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000) and until her last official match was in an Olympic event, in Australia. “It is something great to be able to share a moment like this with athletes from all over the world. It is unique,” she assured LA NACION in August 2000, before traveling to Sydney. Labat will fly to Paris on July 23, as head of the Argentine delegation. Coria and Mercedes Paz, captain of the women, will travel on the same night flight of the Air France company. The players will join the Parisian Olympic Village from Europe, after leaving the tour on grass. Everyone except Zeballos. Sportingly, inexplicable.
