Fran: to embroider their own rackets to economize, to face in Madrid | ATP Tour

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Fran: to embroider their own rackets to economize, to face in Madrid

Cerúndo and Comesaña will collide for a place in the round of 16

April 25, 2025

Sunday’s duel at the Mutua Madrid Open among the Franciscos, closing him and Comesaña, will not only bring together two friends who act as well as brothers. It will also be a student and teacher party in the demanding subject of embroidering rackets.

“I remember that a great friend, ‘Fran’ Comesaña.

The lessons in the portable machine of Comesaña began in March 2018 during a trip together to compete at the ITF Futures level in Türkiye.

At that time, they had already been rivals, training partners and even housing. “I lived in their house when I was moving for Buenos Aires. I shared a room with ‘Fran’ and Juanma [el menor de los Cerúndolo]so it unites us a great friendship, ”adds Comesaña, born in Mar del Plata 24 years ago.

They were united more the goal of saving the money charged by tournaments. They were times of austerity necessary.

“I was a long time traveling with my own rooting machine because sending your rackets to embroider was a very, very high expense. So with that machine it was that I taught ‘Fran’ during a tour alone in Turkey,” adds Comesaña, arthur Fils executioner on Friday in Madrid.

When not belonging at that time or to the Top 1,000 of the PIF ATP Rankings, the two were willing to make certain sacrifices, thus implied the fatigue of spending many hours of standing, closing between three and five daily rackets, or the frustration when they felt on the track that they had not hit with the tension.

Of course, the habit in business did not return. Some players at that incipient stage of professionalism decide to cool their own rackets and other colleagues, and thus earn additional money. It was not the case of the ‘Fran’.

“Many people did. I was not. What if I priced others and went wrong? What do I know … also, at that time I also had to do things from the faculty. I did not give me time. If only with embroidering my rackets I was going all day,” he says, he says, that he still studies a undergraduate one at the University of Palermo.

“It takes you a long time to embroid the three, four or five rackets that you need to take to a game,” adds No. 21 of the PIF ATP Rankings, which on Friday defeated Harold Mayot in his debut of this edition of the contest.

The truth is that what they learned during that tour in Türkiye in 2018 opened a world. Back in Buenos Aires he bought his own embed machine. A Barton. “And as long as we were traveling in a group, we had one because or if it was not very heavy. And we lent ourselves,” he recalls, two years older than Comesaña.

The dynamic lasted several years. “I stopped doing it in 2019 because I finished between 250 in the ranking that year. It was already another story.”

Quite occasionally, in the current dynamics of delivering their rackets to the official charts of the tournaments, they remember that at some point they had to do so for themselves, and value the privileges that have been gained with their effort.

“I stopped using my roofing machine, but I stayed with a lot of love for her. That’s why I still have it in my room,” adds Comesaña, No. 70 of the world.

The Sunday’s duel will somehow pay tribute to the path traveled and how far they have come. A few years ago, they could go on the track with the anguish of whether they had trained their own rackets well. Now they will only have to worry about one thing: try to beat the other.

Did you know what …?
Francisco Cerú leading him 2-0 The Lexus ATP Headtohead with his compatriot Francisco Comesaña after his triumphs last year in Rio de Janeiro and Hamburg.