Speaking of what was coming to his son, less than 24 hours before the Bastad final, Alejandro Cerúndolo pointed out that, to beat Sebastián Báez, “you have to compete”. And since that ability to be competitive was what accompanied Francisco since he started playing tennis, from that side there was a special tranquility in the intimacy of the team of the brand new champion from Bastad. Francisco Cerúndolo loves to play tennis and he always showed an enormous capacity to transgress, to be different and to adapt to everything in order to achieve his dream of being a professional. He was always a great competitor.
The point is that beyond playing very well, Cerúndolo is also the example of a normal boy for whom at some point everything seemed to go the other way. And the pandemic had a lot to do with it, which notably harmed him – like so many other players, it is true – in terms of ranking.
But Wimbledon’s determination not to give up points, in his case, played in his favor entirely. Because the best lost (Djokovic’s case was eloquent, since despite being champion he fell to seventh place in the standings) and he, like so many others in the squad behind the top, took advantage of it. For the first time a “normal” tennis player like Cerúndolo had a benefit in the numbers that determine who is better than another.
The title achieved in the Bastad brick dust is the product of a huge effort, of a tireless working spirit but, above all, of a process, in short. Because Cerúndolo is not Báez, who since he was a boy was an example of precocity, and because this Cerúndolo bears little resemblance to the one who last year reached his first final in Buenos Aires, where Diego Schwartzman beat him with enormous breadth and only allowed him get three games.
Cerúndolo’s career, which he was far from being a crack in his youthful years, was laid out “in the old way”, going through the different levels of the circuit. Slowly but with extreme security. The old futures first, the rankings of the challengers and the challengers later, the rankings of the ATPs and the ATPs last saw him grow very little by little. Always with the bonus of betting on all surfaces, what’s more.
And he did the rest.
Francisco Cerúndolo, Bastad ATP 250 champion after a one hundred percent Argentine final. Photo: @NordeaOpen
Supported by a drive with which he hits the ball very hard, grew in everything external to the player: food, psychological support and the rest of the items that are not seen but are key. He also learned from a circuit that he could be fired (return to the Challengers, for example) if he didn’t have a methodology to deal with it.
His was banging on the door. And what happened to him in the Swedish spa – with his first win against a top ten on the way – is the consequence of a process that accompanies Old Confederacya coach who took over from Wally Grinovero, who listens and is smart to understand a player with a still unknown ceiling.
With Báez they have known each other for many years and both -along with Juan Manuel, Francisco’s younger brother- built a rivalry that ended up strengthening them. That’s why what was experienced during the week of Bastad was almost like a movie. And that’s why you enjoy twice as much. As today Cerúndolo, Báez and his new generation are enjoyed throughout Argentine tennis.
