Chilean tennis arrives stomping at Roland Garros | ATP Tour

Roland Garros

Chilean tennis arrives stomping at Roland Garros

Two players from this country will be seeded for the Parisian major for the first time since 2006

May 22, 2024

The Roland Garros 2024 draw will be known on Thursday afternoon, but for a few days it has been guaranteed that two Chileans will be seeded in the tournament for the first time in their respective careers: Nicolás Jarry and Alejandro Tabilo.

When was the last time that two tennis players from this South American country appeared as seeded in the same Grand Slam? To find the answer you have to go back to 2006, when Fernando González and Nicolás Massú started at Wimbledon as favorites for the title. And they had had that same condition a couple of weeks ago at Roland Garros.

The return of multiple Chileans to these privileged positions – which allow them to avoid other seeds in the first two rounds – has been produced by the incredible seasons of Jarry and Tabilo, and especially by their historic participations in the most recent edition of the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome.

Thanks to Nico being a finalist (l. to Zverev) he appeared this Monday at No. 17, the highest of his career in the PIF ATP Rankings. While reaching the semifinals (l. with Zverev) allowed Tabilo to debut in the Top 25, and establish the first time of two Chileans among the top 25 of the ranking since May 2005 when the protagonists were González (23rd) and Massú (25°).

Now Roland Garros is coming for both, and it promises to be one of the most special of their respective careers. Jarry had already been seeded at Wimbledon (2023), US Open (2023) and Australian Open (2024), and starting next Sunday he will complete the quartet in the Grand Slam on clay.

Tabilo, for his part, will debut in a main draw at Roland Garros, after remaining in the third round of the previous phases of 2021 and 2023. And he will do so in his debut as a seed in a Grand Slam. And to think that before 2024 he had never broken into the Top 50 nor had titles on the ATP Tour.

Winning Auckland in January began to change his career. He will now arrive in Paris as a seed and with the newly formed reputation of having defeated Novak Djokovic in straight sets in Rome.