Diego Schwartzman has rediscovered his best tennis, achieved a historic triumph and is still alive at Roland Garros, waiting for Tsitsipas

diego schwartzmann beat the Portuguese Nuno Borges, 80 in the world, for 7-6, 6-4 and 6-3. At least that’s what the scoreboard on field 9 is about Roland Garros, away from the glare of the most important fields of the Parisian Grand Slam. The reality is that Schwartzman has also beaten the ghosts of recent months, those who have made him almost constantly rethink his future on the professional circuit.

El Peque worked the match against Borges, he made himself strong every time he faced some adversity and ended up solving it very calmly despite his rival never giving up his tenacity, not even in that last match in which he needed of two match points. to define it.

There was a key play in the first set, which shows the good face Schwartzman has shown. El Peque argued with the umpire and reluctantly accepted a seemingly unfair decision from the chair umpire when he gave up a run he had won after an out in which the Portuguese continued play.

At that moment he was down 5-6 and from 30-15 in favor he was 15-30, with the real possibility of losing that set and falling mentally. But not with this Schwartzman. Diego used his anger to his advantage, went up 6-6 and took the tie break 7-3 with great authority, making the Portuguese feel the penalty at every point.

The rest of the game was always even but with Diego better head, paying more attention to the service and taking advantage of the right moments to make a difference for Borges. Each of those golden points won had the same reaction for the Argentine: the cry of “Let’s go!”, the gesture of Topo Gigio who puts his hand to his ear and the explosion of the large group of compatriots in the stands who didn’t stop to give him encouragement

In the next round, the porteño will have to play against Stephen Tsitsipas, one of the great candidates to win the tournament, who also has a chance to finish as 1st in the world. It seems unthinkable that Peque can with the Greek, even if this renewed Schwartzman has already taken off the joke of the last few months and dreams of surprising.

It had been 20 tournaments since he had won two games in a row since September of last year. And with this victory he got on the podium together with two legends: he reached 23 victories at Roland Garros, one more than Juan Martin del Potro and only behind William Ville (57) and Gabriel Sabatini (42). An award for the commitment and heart of Schwartzman, who reunited with tennis in Paris.