Latin American players are often overlooked when it comes to the big tennis tournaments, but the truth is that they have a lot to offer on the big stage.<\/p>\n
Juan Martin Del Potro has led the way for aspiring stars for over a decade, especially after defeating Roger Federer<\/a> in the 2009 US Open final. However, his recent career has been blighted by injuries and it looks like his glory days might be behind him.<\/p>\n This begs the question: who can step up and be the contender for his crown? There\u2019s plenty of talent out there, maybe one of the following can be the next Latin American tennis superstar.<\/p>\n Gar\u00edn is something of a clay specialist. All of his four ATP tour titles have been on clay, culminating in an impressive Rio Open triumph<\/a> in February 2020. The victory marked a period of extraordinary momentum for the player, who had been stringing tournament wins together to carve 18th place out for himself in the ATP rankings.<\/p>\n Gar\u00edn has form, of course. He\u2019s the youngest Chilean to ever win a top-level ATP match, being just 16 years old when he beat Du\u0161an Lajovi\u0107 in 2013, and he lifted the Junior French Open in the same year.<\/p>\n He\u2019s only the sixth Chilean man ever to reach the world top 20, and if he adapts his agile playing style and thunderous forehand to a non-clay surface then the sky\u2019s the limit for the 23-year-old.<\/p>\n Considered by many to be the hot favourite to take Del Potro\u2019s crown, Schwartzman is known as El Peque<\/i>(the little one), although his 5’7″ frame hasn\u2019t stopped him from climbing up the rankings. By spring 2020, he had earned a cool $8 million in career prize money–enough to mark him out as a top player.<\/p>\n Part of the reason for Schwartzman\u2019s bumper earnings are his Grand Slam appearances: the US Open for example, pays each player $54,000 just for playing in the tournament. Like how a casino might give a welcome bonus to new members, this is more down to making the player feel special rather than a reward for his playing ability, but it helps to add to an impressive pot of money.<\/p>\n His career highlight was his display at the US Open 2019. After storming through the opening rounds, he set up a quarter-final tie with Rafael Nadal. Unfortunately for him, it wasn\u2019t to be, with the Spaniard sweeping him aside in straight sets.<\/p>\n He will surely have learned from the experience, though, and it will be tempting to back him to reach the final in the next Grand Slam he plays in.<\/p>\n Seyboth Wild marked himself out as one to watch with a brilliant US Open junior title<\/a> in 2018 and since then he\u2019s pushed on to challenge for the World ATP top 100; a big achievement for someone who only recently turned 20 years old.<\/p>\n While fellow Brazilian Thiago Monteiro is a more established pro – himself a top 100 player – many consider Seyboth Wild to have the potential to achieve remarkable things within the game. He underlined this with his first ATP tour victory<\/a> in the 2020 Chilean Open, impressing the audience with his mature playing style and powerful double-handed backhand.<\/p>\n The young star became the first tennis pro to contract the Coronavirus shortly after; but he soon recovered, and vowed to his fans that he would come back stronger than ever following the crisis.<\/p>\n Hailing from Santiago de Chile, Jarry has been regarded as one of the hopes of Latin American tennis for a few years now. He comes from a professional lineage, with both his grandfather and great-uncle being former pros, and his 1.98m height means he often towers over opponents.<\/p>\n The player\u2019s prodigious talent catapulted him up to an ATP world ranking of 38 in the summer of 2019, after winning the Swedish Open<\/span><\/a> with his aggressive, high-risk style of play.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, Jarry\u2019s short career was hit with controversy in April 2020 after he received an 11-month ban for testing positive to steroids in the previous year. While a big blow to the player, it is likely he won\u2019t lose too much ground on fellow pros who can\u2019t compete anyway due to the Covid-19 crisis. Also, he\u2019ll be looking at the likes of Marin Cilic, who used his own experience as motivation<\/a> to win a Grand Slam following a ban.<\/span><\/p>\n 18-year-old Osorio Serrano is making waves in her home country Colombia. Her Junior US Open win<\/a> in 2019 placed her as world number 1, and there are high hopes that she can transfer her talent to the adult game.<\/p>\n The early signs are good. Osorio Serrano is already one of the highest-ranked Latin American players, and her few Tour performances have offered promising signs.<\/p>\n While an outside bet to be the next Latin American to land a Grand Slam, her ability and winning mentality mark her out as one to watch over the next decade.<\/p>\n A Grand Slam victory is often the pinnacle of a tennis player\u2019s career and only a select few ever taste such success. While a Latin American hasn\u2019t enjoyed this privelige since Del Potro\u2019s legendary win in 2009, the talent is there for this to happen once again over the next few years.<\/p>\n Main Photo by <\/span>Darko Nesic<\/span><\/a> on <\/span>Unsplash<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Latin American players are often overlooked when it comes to the big tennis tournaments, but the truth is that they have a lot to offer on the big stage. Juan Martin Del Potro has led the way for aspiring stars for over a decade, especially after defeating Roger Federer in the 2009 US Open final. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2561,"featured_media":25936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1124,84,5374,135,816,9664],"class_list":["post-25935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-wta","tag-diego-schwartzman","tag-juan-martin-del-potro","tag-maria-camila-osorio-serrano","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-thiago-monteiro","tag-thiago-seyboth-wild"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2561"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99437,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions\/99437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Cristian Gar\u00edn<\/b><\/h2>\n
Diego Schwartzman<\/b><\/h2>\n
Thiago Seyboth Wild<\/b><\/h2>\n
Nicol\u00e1s Jarry<\/b><\/h2>\n
Mar\u00eda Camila Osorio Serrano<\/b><\/h2>\n