The start of the Davis Cup series between Argentina and Belarus, for the playoffs of the reclassification for World Group I, generated an unexpected shock. Where it was the most shocking fall of an Argentine tennis player in the history of the competition, Diego Schwartzman (15th in the world) lost 6-4 and 6-3 against junior Daniil Ostapenkov (18 years old, 63rd in the ITF ranking and without ATP ranking, with just one professional match). After the match, very saddened, Peque made no excuses and took charge of his poor performance on the Buenos Aires brick dust.
“It’s difficult to analyze him because I don’t know him, I can’t talk to you much, it would be imprudent to say if he had a great game or not. I did practically everything wrong. At no time could I find the way around him, change the way he played and clearly playing worse, beyond the fact that in the end he lowered the level and allowed me to get closer. It was on a day when nothing was going to come out, beyond the attitude that I put to the party. With attitude but without tennis it is difficult to win some games ”, analyzed Schwartzman.
“There is no information whatsoever on how he played. Yesterday I went to watch him train for a while and I saw a bit of what he did today: good serves, clean hits. He made enough merits to win the match. If I played moderately at my level it should be a positive game for me, but I didn’t do anything right. I can’t salvage any point. It’s the reality, I can’t lie ”, said the best South American tennis player in the ranking, without avoiding his responsibility.
Schwartzman himself acknowledged, at some point since his Davis Cup debut in 2015, that the competition created some tension for him. But this time he didn’t want to talk about pressure. “The last three years that I played on this court I had lost a game to (Marco) Cecchinato [en la final del ATP de Buenos Aires 2019] -said the Boca fan. I can’t find excuses because there aren’t. On one side of the network things turned out very badly and on the other very well. There is no excuse from the public, from dust or not brick dust. I had a bad day and nothing else. Surely the boys win their games, I trust them, it’s what I think could happen. Everything came loose from my side. In a while I’ll go hit him back ”.
Regarding the presence of the public in the central court of the BALTC, Little Schwartzman commented: “With the level that I had it was difficult for people to get infected. I enjoyed the game little and nothing because of what happened on the court. People are always spectacular, they had very good energy ”.
