Catching a football game, whether is Boca Junior, River or even a minor league team, is no doubt a must-do while visiting Buenos Aires. Football to the Argentines is almost like a religion, taking up pretty much all the spotlights in the local sports news. However, there is another sport also garners a lot of audience and participants in Argentina and that is tennis.
As Argentine pro-tennis players made their ways into the top spots in the international tennis world, like Guillermo Vila in the 1970’s and Gabriela Sabatini in the late 80’s/early 90’s, everyone at home was paying attention. In recent years, the passion for tennis has seen a special boost especially when Guillermo Cañas made headlines worldwide by defeating Federer twice in 2007 which was during a time when Federer was almost unbeatable (except by Rafael Nadal), and then in 2009 when Juan Martín del Potro, nicknamed La Torre de Tandil (The Tower from Tandil, the city where he is from) for his height, won the US Open champion title by having defeated Nadal in the semi and Federer in the final. Since then, we have been cheering on La Torre on newspapers and TV news whenever he played. Unfortunately due to a recurring and troubling wrist problem, he is currently out of the circuit and is recovering from his second surgery.
Many different tennis tournaments, ATP games and special events take place in Buenos Aires yearly. Like this week, we are having the ATP Argentina Open. Rafael Nadal and many top players like Tommy Robredo, Fabio Fognini, Argentine Leonardo Mayer and Pablo Cuevas are participating. At published time, it looks like Nadal is well on his way heading to the final round. If you are in town, get your tickets here now while they are still available. The Argentina Open takes place at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club from Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2015.
Then in 2 weeks from March 6-8, we will be hosting the All-South America world group first round of Davis Cup. We will be playing against Brazil – not only our rivalry on the football field! The Argentina team fares pretty well generally at the world cup of tennis. We are currently at No. 5 in the Davis Cup Nations Ranking out of 133 participating countries. Get your ticket and event information here, and let’s cheer for Argentina on the tennis courts!
Vamospanish