Diego Forlan relished his foray into another professional sport after losing a doubles match on home soil in Uruguay.
The former Manchester United forward was given a wild card to play in the Uruguay Open in Montevideo, a tournament on the Challenger Tour that sits just below the elite ATP Tour.
Forlan and his Argentinian partner Federico Coria, ranked 101, suffered a 6-1 6-2 defeat to Bolivian duo Boris Arias and Federico Zeballos in front of a large crowd, but the result was immaterial for the 45-year-old, who represented his country at football more than 100 times.
A Golden Entrance ✨
Diego Forlan arrives in style and the stadium erupts!
Watch live ➡️ https://t.co/zdmegU414m #ATPChallenger | @DiegoForlan7 pic.twitter.com/oSdLDTWalk
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) November 14, 2024
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to play with Fede,” he said in quotes on claytenis.com.
“It’s not easy for him to enter these tournaments with an amateur beside him. I hadn’t even imagined, let alone dreamed of this. It’s wonderful to have played against professionals – it takes courage to do it.
“The atmosphere on this court that I love so much was incredible; my friends, my family were here. It was very special, and I enjoyed it. I felt like a tennis player for a moment.”
Both teams held serve to start the match, but Arias and Zeballos quickly pulled away after earning a break in the third game of the first set.
Diego Forlan at the net! 💯#ATPChallenger | @DiegoForlan7 pic.twitter.com/p24PQgTVxJ
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) November 14, 2024
The second set followed in similar fashion, with Forlan and Coria struggling to contain the high-powered serving of their opponents, while the former was unable to hold serve during the contest, which lasted only 47 minutes.
“I’ll take with me a few volleys, a good smash, and some forehands during the exchanges. Overall, I’m pleased,” he said.
Forlan signed for Manchester United from Argentinian club Independiente in 2002 and was part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad that won the 2003 Premier League title and the 2004 FA Cup.
After making 98 appearances and scoring 17 goals, Forlan joined Spanish side Villarreal and later played for Atletico Madrid as well as Inter Milan before spells in Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, India and Hong Kong.
He scored 36 goals in 112 appearances for his country, finishing as joint top goalscorer at the 2010 World Cup as Uruguay secured a third-place finish in South Africa, and won the 2011 Copa America.
Forlan was a promising junior tennis player and has continued to play since hanging up his boots in 2019.
He has had some success on the seniors tennis circuit and said he would focus his efforts on court now on tournaments in the over-45s category.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here