The present of the Chilean litter is exciting in Australia

Alejandro Tabilo realizes that the ball is long and smiles. He raises his arms and his team celebrates. At 26, the national tennis player won an ATP tournament for the first time. The 250 in Auckland and he achieved it by beating the Japanese Taro Daniel in the final. The Canadian-born player arrives at the Australian Open at his best moment. After a complex 2023, he has had an exceptional start to the season. In two weeks, he managed to enter the top 50 of the ATP rankings (he will appear this Monday in 49th place).

Two and a half months have passed since his surprise elimination at the Pan American Games against Paraguayan Daniel Vallejo. Since then, everything has been going well for the Chilean. It managed to win two Challengers, the aforementioned ASB Classic and reach the first major competition of the year as the second highest-ranked national team, only behind Nicolás Jarry.

“It’s been an incredible week, I’m really happy to finish like this. Thank you to my team and my family. Two years ago, from the final in Cordoba, my tennis was improving. We worked a lot emotionally and mentally,” he said after his victory this Saturday. Of course, he doesn’t have much time to party. This Sunday, he makes his debut at the Australian Open in the first round, against the American Aleksandar Kovacevic. The meeting is agreed to at 9 p.m. in Chile at the earliest.

Nicolas Jarry is the number 1 in the country. His big goal for the season will be to enter the top 10. He is currently 18th in the ATP rankings and his performance in Australia is essential to get on track. Midweek they suffered a surprising defeat in Adelaide which raised many doubts.

Nonetheless, his and Tabilo’s gift allows the national team to celebrate something that didn’t happen five years ago: having two Chileans in the top 50. The last time was in 2019, with Jarry and Garin. From now on, the Prince seeks to continue to climb and to do so he must overtake the Italian Flavio Cobolli (102nd, 21 years old), from the previous phase. The duel will be played today at 9 p.m.

The fact that he came from the qualifying round, according to the man from Santiago, increases the complexity of the confrontation. “I think it’s a disadvantage to play with a skilled player. This helps them acclimatize to the surface, they get a good feeling. It will surely be a difficult battle, where I will have to continue playing my game and be mentally strong,” he stressed.

Christian Garin (88th) begins the year with a Grand Slam and seeks to leave behind the complex moments he has gone through in recent seasons and which deprived him of showing the level which led him at one point to appear in the top 20. “I’m happy to be healthy, something I’m really looking forward to this season. I can’t wait to play it in its entirety this year, it’s been two or three years without being able to complete a full year and this year I definitely prefer it, that’s a goal.” he stressed during a dialogue with Sporty . Gago will make his debut against Australian Christopher O’Connell (71st) in the competition.

The start of the course will be with Paul Capdeville as coach. Someone they’ve been friends with for a decade. “He knows perfectly well everything that happened to me, what I want to improve and what I don’t want. Even when I was working with other coaches, he was always there. Now it happened in a certain way so that we could work and we worked well. He’s been through a lot of what happened to me too and I think that’s important, it gives me peace of mind, it gives me order and that’s what I need right now. moment,” he said of his coach.