The irruption of Mariano Navone on the circuit it has a very high impact. Very rarely in the history of tennis has a player, in his first season on the ATP Tour, achieved such progress. Ranked 125th in January, he will be number 31 (+94) when the ranking is updated this Monday. His latest achievement was winning a Challenger 175 on the clay of Cagliari (Italy), the highest category of these professional competitions, scheduled only during the second week of the Masters 1000 (today the trophy was defined in Madrid, at the Caja Mágica ). Where was Navone exactly one year ago? In the 219th… A beastly growth.
The victory of Navone, coached by Andrés Dellatorre, occurred against one of the best local tennis players, Lorenzo Musetti (29th in the world, 22 years old). He went with great strategic lucidity, 7-5 and 6-1, in one hour and 47 minutes. The player born in the Buenos Aires town of 9 de Julio did not score aces, committed two double faults, achieved 80% of the first serves, winning 65% of the points with the first serve and 42% with the second. In addition, he broke Musetti’s serve six times, owner of an exquisite one-handed backhand and champion of the ATP in Naples and Hamburg, both in 2022.
It is practically a fact that Navone, who in the coming days will participate in the Masters 1000 in Rome, will be one of the 32 seeds during Roland Garros. That is another notable and practically unprecedented fact: his presence in Paris will be his first in a Grand Slam main draw. That is to say that in his first major The Argentine would be one of the pre-qualifiers: a wonderful achievement.
The duel in Cagliari, in the Sardegna Open, was between two top 50, something unusual in Challenger Tour competitions, although more normal considering that it was a 175 category tournament, made mainly for many of those who lose quickly during the Masters 1000. Musetti, seeded second, had never faced Navone. The Argentine, with the momentum of a dream season, contained the European’s attacks well, won the tight first set and then completely demoralized him.
Champion of five Challengers last year, this season Navone reached the final of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro (lost to Sebastián Báez) and the ATP 250 in Bucharest (fell to the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics), in addition to the semifinals in Marrakech , also in the 250 category (he lost to the Italian Matteo Berrettini; in the 2nd round he beat Stan Wawrinka).
Riera, champion in Germany and top 100
A few days after obtaining the W75 from Chiasso, in Switzerland, and earning a place in the top 100 for the first time, Julia Riera from Pergamin took another leap in quality. The 21-year-old player obtained her most valuable trophy, the W100 in Wiesbaden, Germany, by defeating local Jule Niemeier (111th, 61st in 2022, 24 years old) in the final by 3-6, 6-3 and 6-2.
Riera, 94th in the world, will remain among the best hundred rackets in the world. Accompanied on the European tour by Laura Montalvo, Riera grew up one block from a club (Gimnasia y Esgrima de Pergamino), a place she adopted to train herself not only as an athlete but as a person, playing everything and for many hours a day, without limitations and in a healthy, “club” environment, precisely. She kicked the soccer ball and shot the basketball hoop, as did her mother (Florencia, a physical education teacher) and her father (Antonio -or Tonito-, an accountant by profession and a soccer and basketball player in Sports, another of the city clubs). But Julia was more attracted to wielding a tennis racket.
“Tennis seemed fun to me because it was very competitive and I had to figure out everything alone,” she told THE NATION, during an interview last August. As the circuit does not stop, starting this Monday she will have to appear in Rome, to compete in the Italian Open qualification, against the American Sachia Vickery (129th).