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The Canadian Davis Cup champion Steven Diez has officially announced his retirement of tennis, after a few years struggling with injuries, which made his ranking and made a profit to come by.
But the 34-year-old already has a performance: he is in Beijing, as the new battle partner of the top 10 player Zheng Qinwen from China.
Diez, who played his last game with a challenger in Germany in June, made the announcement a few days ago on Instagram.
An old good friend of Zheng’s coach Pere Riba, Diez would originally start the performance on the grass. But Zheng’s persistent elbow pain led to arthroscopic surgery in July.
And she has just returned to the court – on Saturday evening in Beijing against happy loser Emiliana Arango.
Diez was born in Toronto from Spanish parents and returned to Spain when he was about eight. He was a super perspective as a child and represented Spain internationally.
In 2010, when he turned 19, the Tennis Canada Brainrust – with their French focus on clay -tennis – made him an offer that he could not refuse to return to represent Canada.
At that time, seven Canadians were ranked higher – including Frank Dancevic, Peter Polansky and the rising young people Vasek Pospisil and Milos Raonic, who were a few months older.
It was more than Diez could hope in Spain, where more often or not the federation did not offer much transition aid to juniors as soon as they got older.
Tennis Canada offered him the services of a coach, Galo Blanco (who started coaching Raonic for a number of years) and a guaranteed salary that was not so good with some of his higher-ranked countrymen, who had not received the same kind of help. That was of course not his fault.
Diez made his Davis Cup debut that spring in Colombia and received the call on the opening day against Santiago Giraldo.
The rise in the ranking was slow. Diez broke the top 400 at the end of 2011, the Top 300 in April 2012 and the top 200 (short) in the early 2014. It took almost six years to make a switch to the Top 150; Diez’s career height of No. 134 came at the end of the 2019 season.
All too often, injuries were improved.
A fast, solid ball bow tie and an excellent competitor, his career is partly a matter of “what may have been”. Could he have been a David Ferrer? Probably not. There has only been one.
Could he have he a Roberto Carballes Baena his-a solid top 100 player who even fell in the top 50 a few years ago?
Possible. He will never know. But he will know that he gave it all he had by hand he was treated. There are not many Diego Schwartzmans who are there. And players who are on 5-foot-9, such as Diez, suffer on a considerably higher physical burden that are trying to fight against the big dogs in the play of a big man. That toll was a difficult thing for Diez during his career.
Diez made his first Grand SLAM qualifying draw on the Australian Open in 2014 and played the qualification at the four Majors a total of 20 times.
Only once he came – he defeated Ilya Ivashka, Chris Eanks and Enzo Couacaud to make the main drawing at Roland Garros in 2020 – the Covid Fall Edition.
It was a time. In short, no fans, everywhere masks – Diez was happy that there were no fans, since he played a Frenchman in the final round – and both interviewer and interviewed masks outside in the French autumn weather.
He lost in four sets in the first round of the main table of the American Mackenzie McDonald.
With the majority of 17 years in the trenches, Diez finally broke the $ 1 million in the win in 2023 and ended at $ 1,061,164 – 30 percent of which was earned in that Grand Slam qualifying attempts. That tells you how important it is to get your ranking to the level where you can play them.
In just three seasons – 2019, 2020 and 2021 – he broke the $ 100,000 mark in the income that, with the costs of the costs (especially at the lower levels, without combined accommodation), flies out of the bank account fairly quickly.
For years he traveled with the Spanish coach Marcos Roy, who collaborates with Rebeka Masarova – a former Roland Garros Junior Champion that has been shifted back and forth a few times that represents Spain and Switzerland – since the beginning of 2024.
Diez won 24 Pro titles -a challenger in Burnie, Australia in 2019 with the rest on the Futures circuit, together with nine futures -Dubbel titles.
And he is a Davis Cup champion, part of the winning team in 2022. He was also part of the Winning Squad of 2022 ATP Cup.
The list of players who answered the announcement of Diez and wish him the best – and called him “Stevie” – tells you that he spread a lot of goodwill: Joao Sousa, Pablo Andujar, Marc Polmans, Andreas Mies, Alexis Galarneau, Kimmer Coppejans, Braayden Schnur.
Married in 2019 with the old girlfriend Cynthia Marclay and the father of Patrick – who was just converted one in June – parent in a menagerie and 35 became in March, the ranking was nowhere.
It has never been more difficult to get rid of the futures. Even at the level of the challenger it is difficult to go up with a reduction in the ranking.
And so writing was on the wall.
He will be a great asset to Zheng – not only as a battle partner, but as a positive, decent man and a good influence if she navigates her return to tennis – and all the challenges to be at the top of the WTA tour.
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