10/03/2012 08:38 CEST - Rassegna Internazionale

Un ritorno di proporzioni olimpiche (The New York Times)

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — In a late match on Court 7 of the BNP Paribas Open Thursday evening, an eight-time Grand Slam champion was quietly playing the biggest match of her comeback.
 

The 35-year-old Paola Suarez of Argentina, a former doubles No. 1 and eight-time Grand Slam doubles champion and winner 44 W.T.A. doubles titles, came out of retirement in February to play doubles with her countrywoman Gisela Dulko in an attempt to prepare for the 2012 Olympic Games in London this summer. Suarez had not played competitively since the 2007 United States Open.

With longtime partner Virginia Ruano Pascual, Suarez won eight Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles, taking the Australian Open in 2004, the French Open in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and the United States Open in 2004. Suarez came close but did not complete her career Grand Slam, falling in the final of Wimbledon in 2002, 2003 and 2006.
Suarez also found considerable success in singles later in her career, reaching the semifinals of the 2004 French Open, as well as the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and the United States Open. She won four W.T.A. singles titles and reached as high as No. 9 in the singles rankings.
 

The return of Suarez brings a much-needed boost to women’s tennis in South America. Since Dulko, the continent is without a woman ranked in the top 100 of the W.T.A. singles rankings for the first time since the computer rankings were created.
 

Entering with a wild card into their biggest tournament together thus far, Suarez and Dulko were pitted against Anabel Medina Garrigues and Flavia Pennetta. Pennetta had been Dulko’s doubles partner before Suarez came back, and the two reached No. 1 and won the 2011 Australian Open together. Dulko and Pennetta were so close they shared a Twitter account, a level of togetherness that not even the Bryan twins have attempted.
 

Suarez and Dulko ultimately outlasted Dulko’s former partner, beating the sixth-seeded team of Pennetta and Anabel Medina Garrigues, 6-3, 3-6, 10-7.
 

“I feel really comfortable today,” Suarez said after the win. “I think we played very good. It was a strange match, you know, because Gisela played her partner. But I think we did well.”
 

Dulko first asked Suarez to come back nearly a year ago, during March 2011 at the tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla.

“I just went to ask her if she wanted to come back and play with me for the Olympics,” Dulko said. “I thought that if I had a chance of winning a medal for our country, it was going to be with her. So I just went to ask her. At first she said no. It was tough to convince her, but finally — we are here. We enjoy every match, and we try to get ready for the Olympics.”

Of her decision to come out of retirement, Suarez said: “It was really hard. It was hard because I wasn’t — I didn’t even play tennis, you know? I was out of tennis for four years, and I was thinking, you know, how my body is going to be.
“And I’m perfect now, I feel very good, and I think it was the right decision.”

A similar, albeit higher-profile attempt by Roger Federer to get Martina Hingis (who, like Suarez, retired from competitive tennis in 2007) to come back for mixed doubles at the London Olympics did not succeed. Hingis, 31, is more than four years younger than Suarez, but said that she did not want to deal with everything a comeback would entail, and that Federer should focus on his singles and men’s doubles.
 

“I think we are feeling good, me with Gisela,” Suarez said after the win. “We start with the tournaments Bogota, Monterrey, and Acapulco, to try to get rhythm, you know? Because we didn’t play together, and I was out of tennis for almost five years. And yeah, I feel really comfortable today. I think we played very good. It was a strange match, you know, because Gisela played her partner. But I think we did well.”
 

Suarez, who won a bronze medal in women’s doubles with Patricia Tarabini at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said that her memories of past Olympic glory were what ultimately convinced her to return.

“For me, the Olympics I think to get the medal I think was one of the most important things that I got in tennis,” she said. “And I think I will remember all these feelings, and that’s why I said yes to Gisela in the end.”