Tennis titles, injuries and health problems: the season of joys and contrasts of the main Chilean tennis players

Chilean tennis begins to close its season. At least their two main rackets have already done so and are enjoying their vacation today. This is the case of Alejandro Tabilo (22nd) and Nicolás Jarry (36th), who had a season with different flavors.

On the one hand, Jano celebrated the best season of his career. Exactly a year ago, the left-hander’s renaissance began after his elimination at Santiago 2023. At that time, he occupied 125th place in the world rankings and his level was quite irregular. However, he managed to turn that luck around, winning two challengers and finishing 85th for the season.

This very good end to the year gave him the necessary impetus to take the plunge. And he did it in the first tournament he played this year: the ATP 250 in Auckland where he exceeded the quality and ended up winning his first trophy at this level.

“The way he won it was superlative, and on a fast pitch. I think that there he made a change of mentality, of status. “He started to feel good, to understand the great potential he had in his shots, both in his serve, which improved a lot, and in his backhand and reverse forehand, which really made everyone’s crazy.” part designating the extension player and the coach Horacio de la Pena .

This jump quickly allowed him to enter the top 50 and therefore consolidated his great rise, with the semi-finals of the Masters 1000 in Rome, including the victory over the world number one at the time Novak Djokovic. Actually, He became the second Chilean after Fernando González to eliminate the leader of the world rankings.

For Pulga, the turning point between a top 50 player and a top 20 player was this victory against Nole: “Djokovic doesn’t want to lose to anyone and even though he fought, Ale took him in the end. Then, miraculously, he didn’t beat Zverev. I think that’s when he realized he was ready to do big things.

In June and now with coach Horacio Matta replacing Guillermo Gómez won the ATP 250 title in Mallorca, the first for a Chilean on grass.

These remarkable performances helped him break into the top 20, reaching a career-best 19th place. Finally, In the update of Monday 4, Jano closed the season in box 22, which consolidates him as number one in Chile and also as the best in South America, which Jaime Fillol, Marcelo Ríos and Jarry achieved in the past. Without going any further, Nico finished the previous season in this position in the region.

“What happened in the second half of the year has a little to do with the fact that he is no longer an unknown, but now he was a left-handed player who played like the gods and who had certain patterns of play. They started to study him and everyone wanted to beat him,” emphasizes the former coach of Fernando González.

Towards the end of the season, Tabilo made his debut in the Laver Cup and added Gonzalo Lama to his work team who announced his retirement from tennis this year, and who had just worked with Christian Garin.

“2025 is going to be very tough because he defends a lot of points in the first six months, but he has what it takes” predicted De la Peña.

Nicolas Jarry has had a strange year, the most difficult of his life, according to his own admissions.

After the departure of Juan Ozón as coach, he recruited Juan Ignacio Chela as the coach who would join César Fábregas. However, this union did not work and resulted in the exclusion of the transandean from the team this week.

The highlights of the season were the final in Buenos Aires, with a resounding victory over Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final, and the Masters 1000 final in Rome, the first of its kind for the Chilean. This milestone allowed him to reach 16th place in the world, the highest of his career. However, complex vestibular neuronitis complicated the entire second semester. He has barely added three wins since May and suffered a drop of 20 places. He also couldn’t get past the first round of the Grand Slam tournaments he played.

“In Nico Jarry’s year there are two periods: the first is very good, where he starts less well, but after losing in Santiago, he starts to take a level and arrives in Rome, playing impressively, playing crazy tennis. And we began to visualize a boy who could do great things, but then that ear infection got him and what should be noted about his second half year is that, despite having been physically very bad, he fought until the last day, He managed to get ahead no matter what, he made a crazy effort until the last day of the circuit and that certainly strengthened his head a lot. As soon as he starts feeling 100%, he will be able to play really well again.” said Horacio de la Peña.

For now, Jarry’s pre-season begins on November 18 at Barcelona, ​​managed by César Fábregas, and will last four weeks. He hopes to find Chela’s successor there.

At the beginning of the year, Chile managed to have four top 100 in the world rankings, since in addition to Tabilo and Jarry, Christian Garin and Tomás Barrios completed this group. Even, The chillanejo reached the highest position of his career (93rd). However, a lower back injury forced him to stop playing for several weeks, which led him to leave this group. He is currently ranked 152.

Gago (147th), for his part, had his best moment of the year with the semi-finals of the ATP 250 in Estoril and Munich, with Lama as coach, but the results did not support him and, after the Davis Cup final, he remained without a coach. Today, he is struggling to regain the stability that once led him to be world number 17.

Finally, Matías Soto also has happy accounts, because he has made a big step in doubles, where he is approaching the top 100 and in singles he is already among the 300 best in the world.

Likewise, collectively, This year 2024 was bitter, because in the Davis Cup, even though it reached the final, Chile did not take advantage of the defeats of its rivals and could not enter the top eight. At the Olympic Games, neither Tabilo, Jarry nor Barrios made it past the first round.