Listen to me. If the tennis world could devolve into a game of Goliaths in tennis, would Diego Schwartzman keep from becoming a David in a game of David? The Swiss boyish 6-foot-5, 166-pound eighth-seed rolled through the first two rounds in New York, losing only to his dominant opponent, Alexander Zverev. He defeated his next match to reach the quarterfinals against the 13th-seeded Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. In a moment of insight, the server who rates No. 4 in return games and No. 63 in percentage of first serves won on aces told the Globe-Trotter: “Every time I’m playing against Zverev, I can’t even compare myself to him.” Zverev is the champion of the small tune-up tournaments in Eastbourne and Vancouver, the Grand Prix Hassan II in Morocco and the Rotterdam tournament; he has 16 ATP titles, all claycourt (and the claycourt equivalent of Wimbledon, except the balls are as soft and slow and the conditions are as predictable as the weather): four of them this year. On court Schwartzman has proved comfortable with windy conditions. On clay he’s almost never seen by anyone’s eye.
Some of the brightest young stars are young but not quite promising enough to roll into the semifinals of the Australian Open.
