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Francisco Cerundolo is a guy that I have been keeping my eye on for some time now. For the last 12-18 months, he has impressed me with his game style and determination on the court. And in 2022, it would seem that things are starting to click for this young Argentinian. At 23 years of age, he has just managed to claim his first ATP title. Last week, he won the ATP 250 clay-court event in Bastad. With that said, this isn’t the first that anyone has heard of Cerundolo.
Rewind to the ATP 1000 Masters event in Miami, Cerundolo turned quite a few heads in Florida. During that tournament, he beat Monfils, Tiafoe, and he was beating Opelka as well before he retired from the match. Bear in mind that this is a hard-court event, and Cerundolo still prefers the clay courts. With that said, prior to 2022, he was still scrapping around in Challenger events. But now that he has clinched an ATP title, and risen to number 30 in the rankings, is this a man we should all now be watching?
Let me provide you with my two cents on Cerundolo right now.
Cerundolo – Potential to Be the Next Big Thing in Argentinian Tennis
Contents
Of course, when anyone starts to consider whether an upcoming player could make it big, the first thing they do is check their results. And Francisco Cerundolo certainly ticks the boxes in this department. As for his game style, this also displays many key ingredients to be a top player. But there is more than this which I feel needs to be noted:
Record Against Top 10 Players
One area that always provides a nice indicator is how a player is doing against the best in the business. And for Cerundolo, things are looking pretty promising. He has a 44% win rate against top 10 players, at the time of writing. This involves a win against Monfils, Carreno Busta, and Casper Ruud, with the latter two coming last week in Bastad. As you may recall, he nearly took Nadal to five sets in the first of Wimbledon too!
Performances in Huge Events
It’s one thing having the talent to beat the top guys, but doing it on the biggest stages in tennis is another thing. However, I’d say that Cerundolo is doing pretty good in this department too. The first evidence of this came in Miami when he actually recorded his first wins at this level. Not only that, he went on to reach the semi-finals! I’d also say that his performance against Nadal the other week was seriously impressive.
Really, he should have taken the Spanish legend to five sets, after being a break up in the 4th. And if it went to five sets, who knows what could have happened.
Composure and Mental Capabilities
Besides his game style and obvious talents, I think his mental game is still underrated. On the court, he clearly has huge belief in what he can achieve. And even when things are going against him, he remains calm. Cerundolo is a man that leaves it all out there on the court, and this is something that all the greats do!
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