Diego Schwartzman announces impending retirement, hopes for a 'beautiful' end in 2025

Former world No. 8 Diego Schwartzman has joined the chorus of players who will soon hang up their tennis racquets. The 31-year-old Argentine announced Sunday that 2024 will be his final full season on tour, before what he hopes will be a farewell at his home event in Buenos Aires in 2025.

Schwartzman made his announcement in an emotional Instagram post on Sunday, alongside photos of his career on the court from childhood, saying that tennis gave him "moments I never imagined," and "anecdotes I never dreamed." But the daily grind of training, traveling and losing at tournaments on the globe-trotting tennis tour has become too much, he said.

The one-time Top 10 player hasn't won an ATP main-draw match this year, and has seen his ranking fall to No. 142 in the world.

"Every corner of the court, every second training, every point competing, every moment I was immensely happy," Schwartzman wrote. "I lived it so intensely that today it's hard for me to keep it up. All those beautiful moments have become something that carries weight today and I find it hard to keep enjoying fully.

"On one hand, leaving a life that gave me so much is such a difficult decision, but on the other hand, how happy I was playing tennis makes me want to keep smiling on and off the court the way I always did. However, today that smile is sometimes difficult for me to find. The competitive animal inside me prevents me from enjoying, playing and traveling like I used to."

Schwartzman reached his best-ever ranking in the fall of 2020, after a series of career-best results on his beloved clay courts. He defeated then-No. 2 Rafael Nadal on his way to the final of the Rome Masters in 2020, and also defeated then-No. 3 Dominic Thiem, the defending finalist, in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros that year to reach his lone major semifinal.

Standing at just 5-foot-7, the four-time ATP title-winner always punched above his weight; he scored 13 career Top 10 wins, and when he reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2017 US Open, was the shortest man to do so in nearly 20 years. His nickname in his 15-year career was famously "El Peque," an abbreviation of the Spanish word pequeño.

"Tennis has given me everything I have and much more that I will carry with me forever," he wrote. "'El Peque' had a giant life."

Schwartzman closed his tribute to tennis by saying he was hoping to be able to play the tournaments he loves most for a final time this year, and for "the most beautiful ending [he] could imagine," for his last tournament: likely the 2025 ATP event in Buenos Aries, which is scheduled for the week of Feb. 10. He reached the final in Buenos Aires three times, winning it in 2021.