This year marks the Argentina Open twentieth anniversary.
On Tuesday, the ATP 250 tournament celebrated with a ceremony that paid tribute to those Argentinian champions and finalists in singles and doubles winners who triumph at the iconic Guillermo Villas center court.
Among those was David Nalbandian, who won the tournament in 2008.
Argentina Open Director Martin Jaite recalled when talking to Sports Pundit: “the last Argentinian top seed was David Nalbandian 11 years ago.”
Eleven years went by for the tournament to meet again a local as a top seed, world No. 14 Diego Schwartzman.
The 27-year-old will be playing semifinals later today against Lucky Loser Pedro Sousa, who replaced 2020 Cordoba Open champion, Christian Garin.
With 11 titles under his belt, one of Nalbandian’s greatest achievements is to have reached the men’s singles finals at Wimbledon in 2002.
Lleyton Hewitt, world No. 1 at the time, ended up lifting the trophy that day.
In 2003 the Argentinian who turned pro in 2000 was a semifinalist in the US Open, a final won by former world. No. 1 Andy Roddick.
A year later, he would reach the semifinals of the seasons opening Grand Slam, the Australian Open.
And at the French Open, he would become a semifinalist twice, in 2004 and 2006.
To this day, it remains an achievement no other Argentinian professional tennis player has been able to match.
Sports Pundit caught up with David Nalbandian before the 2020 Argentina Open kicked off last Monday to chat about tennis and racing.
SP: You played and defeated current world No. 1 and No. 2, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as well as Roger Federer, on different occasions.
How do you assess the new generation represented by players such as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, or Alexander Zverev?
DN: “It is impressive that they keep playing and at such a high level. I believe the young players still respect them a lot, which is normal, by everything they represent.”
In 2007, Nalbandian won two Masters series shields in a row, beating world No. 1 Roger Federer and world. No. 2 Rafael Nadal, in two different tournaments, despite having suffered from different injuries that same year - abdominal, back and leg injury.
Representing his country at the Davis Cup, he reached the finals on three different occasions, 2006, 2008, and 2011.
Sports Pundit asked Nalbandians opinion on the new competition, the ATP Cup.
The debut of this event last January in Australia, caused controversy with the traditional competition by groups, the Davis Cup, which took place in Spain, last November.
“I sincerely believe that it is a battle of power. And it is very odd to end the year with a teams competition and a month later start with almost the same format.”
Nalbandian, sometimes considered temperamental on the court, was certainly a natural talent from whom we may not have seen all of his best tennis, with injuries playing its part over the years.
The 38-year-old decided to retire from tennis in 2013, after a successful career, however, he continued to be active in the sports scenery but playing a completely different role.
The Argentinian became a rally driver competing in different events and achieving successful results as well. He made appearances at the FIA WRC championship and the local rally championship.
“Rally is something I always wanted to do, and now I have the time to do it,” he said.
“I enjoy the traditional rally the most, over rallycross, those are completely different,” he added.
“Tennis and rally racing are two very different specialties, almost impossible to compare. The adrenaline in the car is even difficult to explain,” he concluded.
When Sports Pundit asked about his plans for 2020, he said: “I will continue to be involved with rally almost for sure this year.”
Nevertheless, once a tennis player, always a tennis player. Today is common to find Nalbandian enjoying tennis with friends or as a guest commentator as in the past edition of the Cordoba Open.