- Rodrigo Pacheco, Luis Carlos Alvarez and Luca Lemaitre stand out at the Mifel Tennis Open by Telcel Oppo 2023.
Los Cabos, August 2, 2023.- The new generation of Mexican tennis players is already a reality and has raised its hand at the ATP 250 in Los Cabos. Juniors Rodrigo Pacheco, Luis Carlos Alvarez and Luca Lemaitre stood out these days at the start of the Mifel Tennis Open by Telcel Oppo 2023.
In their first steps in international professional tournaments, the three have been gaining experience that will help them in their development in professional tennis.
With the support and encouragement of Mextenis, the three 18-year-old players, who emerged under the Tenis Con Pasión (TCP) player development program, based in Yucatan, have been showing signs of their potential and although they are in their first steps in professional tennis, they are called to be the next Mexican players to follow.
Through wildcards, Pacheco in the main draw and Alvarez and Lemaitre in the qualy, the three young players showed remarkable progress in their participation in the tournament.
The three of us have been training together for two years, which has helped a lot, with Luca and Rodrigo, we are great friends, brothers and great partners,” said Alvarez, who won his first qualy match on Saturday by defeating Brazil’s Eduardo Ribeiro 6-4, 6-4 and although he lost the second match 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, he had a good participation.
Alvarez said that the three of them push each other and motivate each other to keep growing and that has helped them to improve at an individual level.
“We are always at the limit, when we train we all want to win all the time, but it is a healthy competition and that has helped us all to improve our level little by little”, he said after his second match of the qualy where he faced Chilean Gonzalo Lama.
Meanwhile, Lemaitre lost in the first round of qualifying after losing 7-6, 6-4 in a disputed match against Kazakhstan’s Beibit Zhukayev (270 ATP), and Pacheco faced a more experienced opponent, Chile’s Nicolas Jarry (29 ATP), and although both lost, they gained valuable experience in Los Cabos.
Just 5 years ago, Alvarez was playing in the finals of the Cabo Cup children’s tournament, and today at almost 19 years old, which he will be on September 3, he reached the qualy of the ATP 250 in Los Cabos through a wild card.
In the first semester of the year, Alvarez has been developing his tennis with the Sooners of the University of Oklahoma.
While Pacheco faced in the first round of the main draw against Chilean Nicolas Jarry, to whom he lost 6-3, 6-1 leaving his progress evident and taking the best learning from the defeat.
“I am learning, doing things well, sometimes I feel I can give more. I feel that if I do things right, I gain weight, I get physically stronger, logically everything will improve, the speed of my legs, the strength in my serve and my strokes so I hope that soon those things will be reflected and if not, this is a very long race, I do not want to hurry, I want to improve every day to be better so when the time comes to be 100% I will be ready and take advantage of it”, said Pacheco after his match.