Juan Pablo Varillas lost to Yannick Hanfmann at the Córdoba Open
Juan Pablo Varillas is not going through a good moment in his career. Peru’s number one racket has had a difficult start to the season and this was recently demonstrated in the 2024 Davis Cup, where he was unable to demonstrate his credentials. Now, he suffered a tough defeat in Argentina, being eliminated in the first round of the Córdoba Open.
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After his participation with the Peruvian team in Santiago, ‘Juanpi’ did not have time to rest and quickly packed his bags for Argentine territory to continue his adventure on the ATP circuit. Already leaving aside the hard court of the Chilean capital, the national tennis player now began his clay court campaign, his favorite surface, and was present in the Cordoba open.
Varillas met in the first round of the competition against the German Yannick Hanfmann – seventh seed – and was unable to win the duel. Although he began by winning the first set and had achieved a break in the second, errors in his service prevented him from winning in two sets. His opponent was able to come back and win 2-1 (7-5, 6-7 and 1-6).
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In this way, ‘Juanpi’ continues to accumulate defeats in 2024. In fact, so far, he has not been able to play more than one match in any tournament on the circuit: he fell in his debut at the ATP in Adelaide, at Roland Garros and Now he has fallen again at the ATP in Córdoba.
Latest results of Juan Pablo Varillas. Credit: Capture
After this negative result, Juan Pablo Varillas will remain in Argentina, since his next challenge will be the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires, which will take place next Monday, February 12. The Peruvian hopes to return to the triumphant path in said contest.
Juan Pablo Varillas was the Peruvian who generated the most expectations in Peru vs Chile for the 2024 Davis Cup Qualifiers. Being the number one racket in the country, he was expected to stand out more than the entire team in search of glory in the tennis competition ; However, reality ended up being different than expected.
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‘Juanpi’ was unable to celebrate any victory in Santiago de Chile last weekend. This fact caused surprise, since he had not lost in this competition since April 2019. With almost five years undefeated and 12 victories in a row in the tournament (between doubles and singles), the national tennis player arrived fully motivated to face the southern team, but Unfortunately he was far from his best level.
In the 2022 ‘Pacific classic’ – played at the La Expósito Lawn Tennis Club, in Lima – Varillas was the great protagonist of the ‘bicolor’ team, achieving two significant victories against none other than Nicolás Jarry and Alejandro Tabilo, the same ones he faced now in the Chilean capital. This time, the story was different.
Juan Pablo Varillas could not stand out against Chile in the 2024 Davis Cup. Credit: FDPT
First, ‘Juanpi’ faced Tabilo and started winning the match, but later he was disconcerted by his opponent’s growth and fell 1-2 (6-4, 2-6, 1-6). The next day, he had the chance to give Peru a pass to the Davis Cup Finals, but he couldn’t beat Jarry and lost in two sets (2-6 and 4-6).
Everything was in the hands of Ignacio Buse, who although he achieved a historic victory over the first racket of Chile, in the final match against the second racket he could not repeat the feat, falling 1-2 and allowing the ‘Mapocho’ team to achieve the long-awaited qualification to the next round of the tournament.
After this, Varillas hopes to soon return to his best level to continue consolidating himself among the best tennis players in the world and soon achieve his goal of winning his first ATP title. For now, it has been a discreet start to the season, with negative results, but she will seek to reverse that situation as soon as possible.