{"id":25086,"date":"2025-02-11T03:02:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T03:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086"},"modified":"2025-02-11T03:02:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T03:02:30","slug":"former-world-no-8-who-beat-nadal-explains-how-girlfriend-pushed-him-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086","title":{"rendered":"Former world No. 8 who beat Nadal explains how girlfriend pushed him to retire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\"Former<\/picture>\n

Diego Schwartzman will retire from professional tennis this week (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Diego Schwartzman will retire from professional tennis this week at his home tournament, the Argentina Open.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 8 had a glittering career, with one of his highlights coming at the 2020 Italian Open, when he stunned Rafael Nadal on the clay.<\/p>\n

Ahead of his retirement, Schwartzman has explained how his girlfriend helped him make the decision to end his career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Schwartzman picked up four titles and reached the world\u2019s top 10 at his peak. But the Argentine has struggled for form in recent years and will now say farewell to tennis in Buenos Aires four years after lifting the title there.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old announced his decision to retire almost a year ago. Last May, in a statement, Schwartzman wrote: \u201cI want my last tournaments to be my own decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet this 2024 be that way, hopefully getting the opportunity to compete in the tournaments I enjoy the most. And in 2025, in Argentina, to be able to have my final moment, the most beautiful closure I can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former world No. 8 – who now sits at No. 386 in the world – received a wildcard into this week\u2019s Argentina Open, where he will hang up his racket.<\/p>\n

Schwartzman drew No. 7 seed Nicolas Jarry in the first round and will potentially play his last-ever match on Tuesday. Ahead of his farewell, the Argentine explained why he chose to retire and admitted his girlfriend was a sounding board for his decision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\"Former<\/picture>\n

Diego Schwartzman beat Rafael Nadal at the 2020 Italian Open (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt was a process, and the person I talked to the most about it was my girlfriend,\u201d the 32-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetirement is something you feel deep inside, people who see it from the outside always encourage you to keep going and look for other tools.\u201d<\/p>\n

The turning point came towards the end of the 2022 season, when he was still ranked in the world\u2019s top 30.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cBut at the end of 2022, I had a bad run in indoor tournaments, and afterwards I noticed that I wasn’t nervous the days before the tournaments. I was as if nothing had happened. 20 minutes before the matches my adrenaline would rise and it made me feel bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that had been going well for me years ago became anxiety that made me lose control and I didn’t like it anymore. I played badly, I didn’t feel like training and I wasn’t well, until I realised that I didn’t want to anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Schwartzman is ready to move on, he will look back fondly on his career – especially his win over Nadal at the Masters 1000 in Rome at the end of 2020, when the tournament was pushed back due to the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

Nadal hadn\u2019t lost a match in Rome since 2017 but Schwartzman ended his winning run in the quarter-final, beating the Spaniard 6-2 7-5 before reaching his biggest career final.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the victory, he said: \u201cRafa had been playing incredibly and I had been on a bit of a bad run since we started playing again since the pandemic. It had been difficult for me to beat [Hubert] Hurkacz in the previous round and I thought he would beat me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played at night, and I felt that perhaps because of that I had some options. Right from the start I felt that he was not as fine as I imagined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the highlights of that match and I see that I played perfectly, both in attack and defence, and because of the decisions I made. I played at 100 per cent a thousand times and I didn’t beat him, but I gave my all, and I took the victory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diego Schwartzman is set to retire at this week’s Argentina Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer world No. 8 who beat Nadal explains how girlfriend pushed him to retire - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former world No. 8 who beat Nadal explains how girlfriend pushed him to retire - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Diego Schwartzman is set to retire at this week's Argentina Open.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-11T03:02:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/3-39.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25086\",\"name\":\"Former world No. 8 who beat Nadal explains how girlfriend pushed him to retire - 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