According to Chilean media, the former World No. 1 will not make his return to professional tennis at the Columbus Challenger in January.
Published on December 22, 2018
Marcelo Ríos has returned to the courts. The 42-year-old former World No. 1 from Chile beat Ecuadorian Nicolás Lapentti 6-4, 5-7, 11-9 in an exhibition match held on Friday at the Gran Arena Monticello. Ríos reached the top of the ATP rankings 20 years ago and showed that he is still in good shape.
Despite winning those five ATP Masters titles, the Santiago native is the only male player in the Open Era to have been World No. 1 without having managed to win a Grand Slam singles tournament in his career. He did reach the 1998 Australian Open final, losing to Petr Korda in straight sets. Ríos retired from the ATP Tour in July 2004.
Prior to the exhibition, Ríos announced that he intends to return to professional tennis by requesting a wild card for the Columbus Challenger, which will take place in Ohio during the second week of January.
“I have been practicing with guys of a fairly high level,” Ríos said in an interview with La Tercera. “I have lost 12 kilos [note: ‘stone’ in the original, a British unit of weight] and I have almost reached the weight I had when I was a player (on the tour).”
Imagine: winning a Challenger at 43 years old is nice, no matter what.
“I feel capable of playing it and winning it. If I didn’t feel good playing, I wouldn’t do it.”
According to La Tercera, the organization’s refusal to immediately confirm the wild card for the former World No. 1 provoked Ríos’s decision not to insist on playing the tournament.
