Sebastián Báez is the new Argentine face in the Top 100 of the world ranking

He started the 2021 season at 308th in the world. It will close it within the Top 100, after completing a climb of more than 200 places. It is a double merit, if one takes into account the difficulty of climbing positions in a ranking conditioned by the pandemic, with many rivals who kept their positions despite playing little. Since Monday, Sebastian Baez He is the new Argentine inhabitant within the 100 best tennis players in the world. The last blow was the conquest of the Challenger of Campinas, in Brazil, which gave him the necessary points to advance from 111th to 97th place, the best location of his still short career, of course.

At the age of 20, Báez thus crowned a formidable 2021. Conquered six Challengers –The immediate category below the ATP–, with successes in Santiago (twice), Concepción, Zagreb, Buenos Aires and Campinas, and reached three other finals, with a mark of 46 wins and 8 losses. Launched in the final stretch of the tour, he traded the South American challengers in brick dust for a week for a hard, faster and indoor court in the Next Gen ATP Finals, in which you entered at the last minute. Moving from the continent, from rivals –much more used to playing at the ATP level–, surface, time zone, and even rules, with unusual scores (best of 4 games sets).

Even so, he kept the good feeling: excellent victories over Italian Lorenzo Musetti (58th) and Frenchman Hugo Gaston (67th) to reach the semifinals, where he only bowed to the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz (32nd), an opponent who is already on the major leagues. He also managed to play some ATP tournaments. In July, in Hamburg, he managed to pass qualifying, but luck left him after beating Frenchman Corentin Moutet in the first round: Covid-positive in the middle of the tournament and down before crashing against Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili. He came back and focused on a second semester packed with hit numbers.

Entering the Top 100 will allow him, in 2022, to play his first Grand Slam main draw: It will be at the Australian Open, January 17-30. Perhaps it will also reach him to enter the main draw of the ATPs in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, although he could also access as a guest. Another season, new goals for Báez and Sebastián Gutiérrez, the coach who has helped him in his steady rise and who has accompanied him since the junior stage. In the youth stage he was number 1 in the ranking, finalist of Roland Garros 2018 – he fell in the final against the Taiwanese Chun Hsin Tseng – and in 2015 he won the Orange Bowl, another of the traditional junior tour tournaments, in Florida.

From ‘Batata’ to Del Potro

The cravings for tennis began very early for the third son of José Luis Báez, a Malvinas veteran based in Billinghurst, and Elena: he was just over two and a half years old when he took a racket abandoned by his father, and at 5 he started at Sportivo Villa Ballester. In 2010, he won a G3 tournament at Parque Roca, the prize of which was to practice a few weeks at the José Luis Clerc academy on the Villa Soldati estate. There he caught the attention of Batata, who has since become his trainer, and since 2015, Gutiérrez has accompanied him as a permanent trainer. The closure of the junior stage had a luxury: the invitation he received to be sparring at the 2018 Masters, where he had the pleasure of practicing with Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev, among others.

It measures 1.70 meters and weighs 70 kilos. By stature and style of play, more than one reminds him of Diego Schwartzman. He has an excellent bond with Juan Martín del Potro, with whom he shared some trainings and later became an ally and source of consultation. But it doesn’t stop at what you’ve already accomplished, at all. “It’s a very nice feeling to get into the Top100. I went up during the year, I felt it getting closer and closer and ending 2021 like this is the icing on the cake. Now I want to have the excellence that the best have, I know that I can still improve. I feel like it’s good, because it means that the ceiling is high and every day I want to be better than the day before, ”Báez told the official ATP website. His perseverance led him to this 97th position that he occupies this week, already among the majors. Of course, much more will come. For Sebastián Báez, everything is yet to come.