There is a glow around Canadian tennis these days. Over the past few years, Milos Raonic and Genie Bouchard have brought focus both to the sport and to the nation, capturing the attention of tennis fans everywhere with both their dynamic play and interesting personalities. Francoise Abanda, Denis Shapovalov, and Felix Auger-Aliassime have energized the youth tennis scene with their powerful games, engaging nature, and main tour successes. Vasik Popisil and Daniel Nestor continue to find doubles success. Quietly climbing the rankings ladder and making inroads into the Canadian tennis conversation is 25-year-old Steven Diez.
Steven Diez began the year ranked #384 in the world. Diez is slated to finish 2016 hovering around the 160 range. Much of his point gain this year came from the success he found on both the main and challenger tours in the spring and summer. Diez started his 2016 climb by making the finals of six futures events in Spain and Morocco, winning 3 of them. He followed that up with a quarter-final run at the Karshi Challenger and then qualifying for the main draw of the ATP 250 Estoril Open. He then made the finals of the Hoff Challenger and qualified again for the ATP 250 Hamburg. The highlight of his run came the following tournament. Earning a wild card to his home premiere event, Diez upset Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund in the first round of the Rogers Cup. For Diez the emotional victory was an important one.
“With no doubt the best moment of the year an my career was winning my first round at Rogers Cup. It was an amazing feeling to win a Masters series main draw match match in Toronto and in front of family and so many people I knew.”
He lost in the second round to Bernard Tomic in a tightly contested two setter, but continued his high level of play making semis of the Strasbourg Challenger a week later.
Steven Diez Climbs Rankings Ladder
Steven Diez has credited his improved results to a couple of factors. First, he is healthy. He has spent the past few seasons dealing with injuries to his wrist and shoulder. Wrist and shoulder injuries are famous in the world of tennis for being career obstacles. One only has to look at Juan Martin Del Potro, Laura Robson, and Maria Sharapova to see examples of this. Another by product of his nine month absence of the game was that his outlook on the game changed. “I think that those nine months I was out injured made know how much I missed being on the tour and made me stronger mentally.” This rediscovered appreciation for the game helped Diez push through difficult times of injury, while he was also quick to credit his time on the lower tours for giving him a solid base in both conditioning and mental match play. “I think the experience I gained when I was younger playing futures, also helped me to pass by that phase faster.”
As Diez continues to climb the rankings later, his foundation was built on the deep red clay of the Spanish courts he grew up on. Although born in Canada, Diez spent much of his formative years in Spain (and has dual citizenship). He grew up playing juniors in Spain and even won the Spanish National Tournament in 2009 and 2015. At age, 19, Diez decided it would “be best for my career” to play for his birth nation Canada. Diez’s roots in tennis are steeped in his family.
“I think I was pretty much born watching tennis, I had my dad that played tennis as a hobby and my older brother that played as weil, so once I could stand on my feet that’s what I did and I’m still doing that today. I think Juan Carlos Ferrero and Andre Agassi were both of my early heroes.”
In the mold of Ferrero and Agassi, Steven Diez has a style of play that hugs the baseline with compact swings and big acceleration through the finish of his ground strokes. Diez enjoys taking the ball down the line off the backhand side while on the run. An all court player for sure, Diez still has the ability to hit passing shots and winners from awkward positions on the court. While looking back to the foundation that has been built in Diez’s game, he also continues to look forward to 2017. Deiz notes, “This year my goal was to finish in the top 200 after my shoulder and wrist injury, now that I have achieved that I want to finish as high as possible.” Although originally planning on not playing any more tournaments this fall prior to the off season, Diez is in Brest, France this week for the Brest Open challenger event, where he has won two matches and advanced to the quarterfinals.
In what is showing to be an important era in Canadian tennis with many stars bringing the spotlight of the sport to the proud nation, Steven Diez continues to work hard in helping his game to find it’s own burning spot in the sky of the sport.
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