The Jarry Effect and more aggressive play key to Garin’s dream week in Indian Wells

The Californian sun changed the feelings of Christian Garin (97°). After a start to the year without good results and very difficult in the standings, the Chilean flew to Indian Wells to achieve a performance that recalls his best times on the circuit. On Tuesday, he will face Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (28th) for the bye to the quarter-finals.

Duel that arrives with the best possible sensations. Throughout the week, he not only managed to surprise the whole world with his victories, including one against Casper Ruud (4th), but also with his way of playing. The one we had seen since the match against Dominic Thiem at the Chile Open and who now seems to have completely internalized the northerner.

“I’m very happy to play this way, aggressive, going to the net. It’s the way I like to play and the only way I have to beat this class of player. I want to keep improving and keep enjoying this tournament confessed the “Tank” after his 6-4, 7-6(2) victory over Ruud, which became the third time he managed to beat an ATP Top 5 player.

And the sentence does not lose support if we analyze the figures left by the commitment between the Chilean and the finalist of two Grand Slams (Roland Garros and US Open) in 2022. Gago came to the net 24 times and managed to win the point in 19 of them . Additionally, he has signed 39 winners, including 27 to his right. On the other hand, unforced errors totaled 32.

When it comes to serve, the five-time ATP champion managed to connect 58% of first serves, winning 80% of them. He scored with five aces and two double faults. What’s more, he only allowed one break out of four occasions where he had to give up his service game.

But this style did not only appear in the Californian desert. Garin had already shown it at the Chile Open, a tournament where he was eliminated in the second round, but where he began to build the path that today places him among the top 16 in the first Masters 1000 of the season. . It was his coach, Andrés Schneiter, who confessed to La Tercera, minutes after the national racket beat Dominic Thiem on his debut in Santiago.

“The idea was for us to play aggressive and that’s what we worked on, to play as aggressive as possible, obviously the tactic was to be like that with Thiem because sometimes he sometimes plays high or forward and if you go too far back, we could end up in a situation on the pitch that we didn’t want” exhibited at that time in San Carlos de Apoquindo.

Another determining factor is confidence, mainly thanks to several consecutive victories which have been chained. In 2023, his best record to date was at the Nouméa Challenger, the first week of January. In the capital of New Caledonia, “Gago” added three consecutive winning matches, a mark that He had not been successful since July 2022 when he reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Without going any further, after the Challenger and before arriving in Riverside County, nortino had only won two games in three months . One in Cordoba against Pedro Martínez and the other in Santiago against the pupil of Nicolás Massú.

Now, on the other hand, there are already five in a row. To his two victories in the qualifying round, are added those won against Daniel Galán, Yoshihito Nishioka and Casper Ruud. On Tuesday, he must face Alejandro Davidovich Fokina for reproduce his best result in a Masters 1000 : the quarter-finals he won in Paris (2019), Madrid (2021) and Rome (2022).

At the moment, he also gets 106 points which leaves him with 80 in the live ranking. If he beats the Spaniard he could make 180 and hit one of the goals he has set with his team. “We have very clear objectives, we want to get 200-300 points quickly. Keep adding, enter Roland Garros, enter the big tournaments. If we manage to get into Rome, Madrid would be spectacular” Schneiter told El Deportivo at the Chile Open.

A week that undoubtedly also influenced Garin, but not only because of what he did himself, but also because of what Nicolás Jarry did. The consecration of the man from Santiago to San Carlos de Apoquindo served as motivation for the rest of the national delegation , to the point that not only “Gago” disputes the round of 16 in Indian Wells, but also Alejandro Tabilo. Both have been through some bad personal times, but now they seem to be playing at their best. The desire to recover the number one in Chile (which both had last year) and the confidence to see that by working well, things can be done, make them shine under the Californian sun.

On Tuesday, history can continue to be written. For now, it’s the first time since 2007 that there are two Chilean tennis players in the round of 16 of the same Grand Slam, replicating what González and Massú achieved in Rome in 2007.