What goes from Guillermo Vilas to Carlos Alcaraz

For Argentine sport, the early years of the 70s were an opportunity to shine alone. While the dream of collective glory fed on isolated moments of football, basketball, rugby and little else, the big covers of newspapers and magazines always passed one by one. Locche, Monzón, Galindez, Demiddi, Reutemann, De Vicenzo… our great sporting conquests were around them and a few others. of them and Guillermo Villas. Incidentally, the adopted left-hander from Mar del Plata, with a headband and long, flowing hair, was a singular case even in the midst of this legion of talent.

Only the tremendous explosion of Las Leonas led by the endearing Lucha Aymar produced a phenomenon of popularity and a similar tsunami of business and infrastructure. Just as today you can find hockey fields in any corner of the country and you sell sticks as if you were in India, With Vilas, the associates of tennis clubs have grown, investments in the construction of rental courts have increased exponentially and the trade in shoes, rackets and balls has even changed the inventory logic of many of the biggest sports houses.

Thanks to him, many journalists and fans became familiar with terms such as drive, slice, top spin, ace or cushioning and television began to use satellite hours in the run-up to the Roland Garros and Forest Hills finals. or the Masters Tournament.

Of course, Vilas was not the first proper name in Argentine tennis. However, since pulling Bjorn Borg off center court in Buenos Aires with a bleeding right hand, Argentine tennis began a journey of national and international assessment that continues to this day. It was the 1973 Republic final, in which the Swede performed a lob and fell heavily, catching himself against the iron sewer at the back of the pitch. And finals followed by victories against Orantes and Panatta and the Melbourne Masters against Nastase and everything that each of us remembers in our own way to give Great Willy the dimension of a kind of Saint Martin of our tennis.

This present, which once exploded incomparably with the Legion and even with moments of instability, still moves in the zone of excellence, is embodied, once again and since 2001, in the so-called Argentine Open, a tournament which, according to records, occupies the place of the “21st century”, not only of those won by Guillermo but also of those in which surnames such as Robson, Russell or Morea since the late 19th century.

In more than two decades, Argentine tennis has been enriched by a tournament whose prestige has allowed it to no longer have more demanding teams than those, for example, of the Rio tournament which doubles it in points and prizes. , but also to see phenomena of the dimension of Nadal, Kuerten, Moya, Ferrero, Ferrer, Wawrinka, Robredo, Thiem, Nishikori, Ruud and all the Argentine stars who, in addition to an edition, would have been enough to ensure the success of the tournament.

The great novelty of the tennis festival which has just started with a preliminary phase worthy of major tournaments is the presence of Carlos Alcaraz, the number two in the rankings who, in 2022, became the youngest tennis player in history to reach the top of the rankings.

There are endless reasons that allow us to enjoy a show that does not correspond to the economic crisis that our country is going through (not to mention the one that starred in the second edition played in the months after the disaster of December 2001 ) . Motivations that range from the passion of an informed public who loves the game to the benefits of a city that is so much more pleasant to visit than to live in.

There is much more than that but I choose omission only because of the personal and professional connection with Martín Jaite, director and original mentor of this fascinating sporting adventure. Even if you don’t believe in objectivity, sometimes it’s better to favor good taste than to fall into emotional bias.

In any case, he left the door open for each of you to discover each of these reasons. Because, as in the time of Vilas, what is needed is tennis. But what is happening in this February week in Buenos Aires is much more than that.

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