From the football field to the tennis court, Forlan’s childhood was fulfilled
For football fans from the 2000s onwards, they probably remember the name Diego Forlan, the blonde striker who was with Manchester United but had a poor shot, with nothing to remember except for scoring two goals against Liverpool in a confusing manner.
Forlan may not have enjoyed success at United. But after moving to Spain he was a prolific goalscorer. Scoring goals like a bag with Villarreal and winning the European Golden Shoe award in the 2004-05 season and at Atletico Madrid in the 2008-09 season.
After playing football for 21 years, having played in Japan, India and Hong Kong, he retired in 2018 at the age of 39. After parting ways with Kitchee SC in the Hong Kong league.
The former Uruguay striker, who scored 36 goals in 112 appearances for his country, wasn’t just good at playing football. He almost turned pro as a tennis player. Now, at the age of 45. He’s back doing what he loves, which he had to give up because of football.
Forlan will make his professional tennis debut at the Challenger Tour Uruguay Open in his home country, which will be held from November 11-17.
The former Uruguay international has been playing tennis since he was a child and was just as good at it as football, but he turned to football, where his grandfather, father and brother played, and enjoyed great success.
The brutal striker said that when he was still with United, during the pre-season tour in the United States, they went to play tennis and his opponent that day was Ruud van Nistelrooy, the striker pair on the field who had to face each other on the court, among teammates such as Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville and Sir Alex Ferguson, the สมัคร ufabet team manager, who all bet that Forlan would win because they knew about his tennis skills beforehand.
“Everyone expected me to win. There was a lot of pressure and I don’t know what I was thinking, but I just had to win. I was better than Ruud because I played tennis when I was a kid. We played a tie-break and I won. It was a relief because a tie-break is like a penalty shootout. You can’t miss because it can decide the game,” Forlan recalled.
After hanging up his boots, Forlan followed the path of many players, which is to become a coach, but he still missed tennis, so he chose to compete in the Masters Tour of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), starting from the over-35 age group before moving up to over-40. Now that he is 45 years old, he will have to face players of the same age, which is 45+, but it is not a professional tennis.
“After I stopped playing football, I still had tennis in my mind. I wanted to improve myself. My friend Carlos Obregon invited me to play tennis. I didn’t have to think twice. After that, we trained two or three times a week for an hour and a half. Now it’s four days a week. Because the players I played with, they’ve been playing tennis their whole lives.”
His performance on the Masters Tour was also extraordinary. Out of 11 matches, all on clay, he won 8 matches and lost 3 matches.
The man who was instrumental in turning the football forward into a good tennis player was Enrique Perez, Forlan’s friend and former tennis player and captain of Uruguay’s Davis Cup team, who came to train and give advice at the Carrasco Lawn Tennis Club in Forlan’s hometown of Montevideo.
The 45-year-old’s job includes being a club ambassador for Manchester United, his two former clubs Atletico Madrid and a La Liga ambassador travelling the world, but his main job is being a father of four who enjoys both football and tennis, and there’s every chance we’ll see a fourth-generation Forlan playing football or becoming a tennis superstar in the future.
In addition to football and tennis, Forlan also plays golf, but has not returned to this sport as he wanted to play a sport that involved running.
“I want to do anything that involves running. Golf can be nice on beautiful courses, I like it, but I want something different, something more like football. When I play tennis, I get better and better. I have to play against the top players from all over Uruguay. At first I was out in the first round, but now I can beat a lot of them.”
Forlan’s unique characteristic in playing tennis is that he holds the racket with his left hand, similar to Rafael Nadal, the former world number 1 tennis player from Spain. Since he started playing tennis at the age of 3, his older brother had the idea that his younger brother should play with his left hand. He grew up playing tennis with his left hand, but in all other activities in his life he uses his right hand.
“If you look at me playing tennis now, you see that I look more like a former tennis player than a former footballer. Because when I was a kid, I played a lot of tennis, so I had good skills and techniques in that sport, which also had a positive effect on football.”
It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Forlan is a tennis fanatic. When he’s playing in Europe, he’ll go to big tournaments like the French Open, Madrid Open, and even Uruguay’s Davis Cup matches.
For the Uruguay Open, Forlan will compete in the men’s doubles as a wildcard, where he will partner Argentine Federico Correa, ranked 101st in the world in singles on the ATP Tour and 407th in the world in doubles.
“I want to play against good tennis players to let them know that if you want to beat me, you’re going to have to work hard,” the former sharp-shooting striker declared of his opponent.
Forlan has shown that if we love something, no matter how much time has passed, if we have the opportunity to do it, we should do it to the fullest.
Because the reward may not be a trophy, but rather the fulfillment of a dream that has been abandoned for a long time.