Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman might have been nicknamed El Peque (an abbreviation of pequeno, which means small in Spanish), but his career reached great heights. Diego Schwartzman became the shortest Top 10 player since Harold Solomon in 1981 and made a Grand Slam semifinal at 2020 Roland Garros. Named by his parents after the legendary footballer Diego Maradona, Schwartzman lived up to his namesake by writing some Argentinian history in his field. Schwartzman is retiring from professional tennis this week, at his home tournament, the ATP Argentina Open in Buenos Aires. His first match of his farewell is against Nicolas Jarry.

Unexpected breakthrough, tour-leading return stats

At the Challenger in Szczecin, there is a famous anecdote about a press conference with Grzegorz Panfil after he lost to Diego Schwartzman in the 2013 quarterfinals. Journalists asked the Pole why he wasn’t attacking his opponent’s weak second serve. He explained that it was actually full of unpleasant spin but the moment the microphones were off, his opinion on it changed to “how did I not kill that moonball, there was nothing on it”. Imagine telling that press room and Panfil that Schwartzman, 21 years old and ranked World No. 122 at the time, would go on to post such insane achievements in his career.

If your serve isn’t going to be a huge factor, you need a truly elite return game to make up for it. On the ATP Tour, Schwartzman won 33,29% of his first serve return points (data taken before his last match in Buenos Aires), which puts him at No. 12 on the all-time leaderboard and within a percentage point of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, or David Ferrer. It’s a similar situation on the second serve return where he sits at No. 13 with 54,48% points won. Again, not far off the aforementioned legends of the game. And realistically, return is just a part of what goes into his statistics. This is just how strong Schwartzman was off the ground, more than covering for what he lacked in the serving department.

Becoming a threat to the elite

Schwartzman lost his first 13 matches against Top 10 opponents, but the signs of improvement were there with a tight defeat to Roger Federer in Istanbul or a five-setter against Novak Djokovic at 2017 Roland Garros. Ultimately he began producing his fair share of memorable wins, particularly another five-set thriller over Dominic Thiem to make his lone Grand Slam semifinal or the win over World No. 2 Rafael Nadal in straight sets on clay (!), which ended up leading to his lone ATP 1000 final in Rome. It was his only victory over the legendary Spaniard (1-11 head-to-head record), but they also fought a couple of close battles where the scoreline didn’t reflect how hard the underdog made his opponent work for the win.

Throughout his career, Schwartzman produced a 70% win/loss record in the main draw at the French Open, including three runs to the quarterfinal stage or above (2018 QF, 2020 SF, 2021 QF). Going for more never became a real possibility as just like for so many other players over the years, it was Nadal who stopped him in all three campaigns. The Spaniard also defeated him in the quarterfinals at the 2019 US Open with Schwartzman’s only other last-eight exit at a Grand Slam coming to Pablo Carreno Busta in New York in 2017.

Trophy cabinet, extreme doubles with Isner

Schwartzman won four ATP Tour titles – three on clay (2016 Istanbul, 2018 Rio de Janeiro, and 2021 Buenos Aires) and one on hard courts at 2019 Los Cabos. He demonstrated his versatility by making five indoor finals (2016-17, 2021 Antwerp, 2019 Vienna, 2020 Cologne), but wasn’t able to turn any of them into a trophy. The event he’s retiring at, Argentina Open in Buenos Aires (his hometown), served an important part in his career with three final appearances (2019, 2021-22). In his strongest season (2020), he finished at No. 9 in the year-end ATP Rankings after qualifying for the ATP Finals.

Despite his physical limitations, Schwartzman also produced a few memorable runs in doubles. With Guido Pella, he reached the semifinals of the 2019 French Open and the same year he made the ATP 1000 Madrid final with one of his best friends on tour Dominic Thiem. But the most remarkable has to be his pairing with John Isner. The two reached the 2022 ATP 1000 Rome final with 38 centimeters (about a foot and three inches) separating him from the big-serving American giant. That uncanny partnership glued together extremely well.

Ready to say goodbye

It was only by the 2023 season that Schwartzman began declining with his very physical game suffering the moment he lost half a step. He was also open about struggling with his mental health. That year he fell outside the Top 100, despite managing his last memorable win over World No. 8 Taylor Fritz at the ATP 1000 in Shanghai. The next campaign was even more tricky with the 32-year-old going 0-8 on tour-level and ending the season after qualifying for the US Open, his last Grand Slam event.

By then he had already announced his plans to retire at the 2025 Argentina Open, writing “I want my last tournaments to be my own decision.” Looking at his level against Camilo Ugo Carabelli at the Rosario Challenger, the only appearance he planned before Buenos Aires, you could see he trained hard for this send-off and was ready to deliver a few magical moments against Nicolas Jarry at his favorite event in front of his home crowd.

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports