by Matteo Beltrami, translated by Giulia Bosatra
Francisco Cerundolo and his brother Juan Manuel’s fairy tale begins far away in Buenos Aires and is one of those stories of ITF Futures and humbleness, much humbleness.
Their father Alejandro (known as Toto) who trains them both, had a tennis-playing history of his own in the 80s. After hanging up his boots, he trained Josè “Chucho” Acasuso who battled his way to the final of the 2001 Buenos Aires Open at 18 years of age; since then no other Argentine of such an young age has reached a final until Alejandro’s son Juan Manuel, at 19, secured a victory at the ATP Cordoba 20 years later.
As for Francisco, who was born in 1998 and is three years older than his brother, his moment of glory arrived in 2021 at his home town tournament, the ATP 250 Buenos Aires. He quite unexpectedly made it to the final after starting off in the qualifying rounds. Having systematically left Benoit Paire, Pablo Andujar and Albert Ramos by the wayside, he succumbed in the final to his fellow Argentine Diego Schwartzman.
To think that the story of these two brothers might have come to an end during the pandemic in 2020. They were confined in Buenos Aires and cooped up in their house with the rest of their family. Francisco didn’t give up, but went on training, struggling with wrist problems and a troublesome tendinitis in his leg. Then in August he ventured on a tour in Europe with Tomas Etcheverry who also spent a month in Italy. Reflecting on this time, Francisco remembers: “We didn’t know what else to do. We traveled to Italy and were quarantined in Arezzo before starting to compete. The journey was hard, we were nervous and plagued with doubt. A few months into the tour, however, we were more relaxed.”
According to their father it was Sinner, Francisco’s recent opponent in Miami, that triggered it all off for them. Sinner was a real source of inspiration for his boys: “He wasn’t that great as a junior; he’s one of the weirdest cases of recent years – Cerundolo Senior’s verdict – Time and again we’ve said: if he can do it, then so can we.” Now they’ve just come up against each other in the quarter finals of the American tour.
En route to his match against Sinner, Cerundolo collected illustrious victims like Reilly Opelka, Gael Monfils and Frances Tiafoe. His game is less structured than his brother’s, who is happier on red clay; Francisco, as shown in his match against Tiafoe, is endowed with a good service and a solid baseline game, particularly with his forehand.
The Argentine avenged his younger brother, who in the third round had been knocked out by Tiafoe; this time the North American lost his early lead and was defeated 6-7(2) 7-6 (3) 6-2. He also suffered from a back problem during the final stages of the match.
Before the match, Jannik said of him: “I don’t know Cerundolo (Francisco) quite as well, we trained together at Indian Wells and here in Miami. And then, we are also quite good friends. We’ll see, it’ll be a tough match, a difficult one, and I’ll prepare as well as I can for this one too.”
On court things turned out very differently from expectations. Francisco was leading 4-1 in the first set with Sinner, when the Italian was forced to withdraw after just 23 minutes due to foot blisters.
“I didn’t know anything,” Francisco commented during his on-court interview. “When I was serving at 3-1, 30/0, I saw him [Sinner] bending down. It was really strange. I didn’t see anything wrong and I hope he is ok, he is a great player. My run here means a lot. It is everything I have dreamed of.”
Francisco, who will now to face Norway’s Casper Ruud in the semi-finals, has definitely nailed a series of excellent performances, reaching his first semi-finals of a 1000 ATP Masters.
However it goes today, it will have been a great week for the twenty-three-year-old Argentine who’s been dreaming of making it to the top 50 in the world one day: for now, he’s already gained 52 places, hoisting himself up to number 51 in the ATP ranking. A run-up that started from the bottom.
