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Canadian Davis Cup champion Steven Diez has officially announced his retirement from tennis, after several years struggling with injuries that caused his ranking to drop and made wins hard to come by.
But the 34-year-old already has another gig: he’s in Beijing, as the new hitting partner of top-10 player Zheng Qinwen of China.
Diez, who played his final match at a Challenger in Germany in June, made the announcement a few days ago on Instagram.
A longtime good friend of Zheng’s coach Pere Riba, Diez originally was due to start the gig on the grass. But Zheng’s persistent elbow pain led to arthroscopic surgery in July.
And she’s just returning to the court now – on Saturday night in Beijing against lucky loser Emiliana Arango.
Canada to Spain to Canada
Diez was born in Toronto to Spanish parents, and returned to Spain when he was about eight. He was a super prospect as a kid, and represented Spain internationally.
In 2010, as he was turning 19, the Tennis Canada braintrust – with their French focus on clay tennis – made him an offer he couldn’t refuse to return to represent Canada.
At the time, there were seven Canadians ranked higher – including Frank Dancevic, Peter Polansky and the rising youngsters Vasek Pospisil and Milos Raonic, who were a few months older.
It was more than Diez could hope for in Spain, where more often than not the federation didn’t offer much transition help to juniors once they aged out.
Tennis Canada offered him the services of a coach, Galo Blanco (who shortly thereafter went on to coach Raonic for several years) and a guaranteed salary – which didn’t sit too well with some of his higher-ranked countrymen, who hadn’t gotten the same type of help. That, of course, was not his fault.
Diez made his Davis Cup debut that spring in Colombia, getting the call on opening day against Santiago Giraldo.
The rise in the rankings was slow. Diez broke the top 400 at the end of 2011, the top 300 in April 2012 and the top 200 (briefly) at the start of 2014. It took nearly six more years to make a move into the top 150; Diez’s career high of No. 134 came at the end of the 2019 season.
Too often, injuries stalled his progress.
A quick, solid ball-striker and an excellent competitor, his career is in part a question of “what might have been”. Could he have been a David Ferrer? Probably not. There’s only been one of those.
Could he have been a Roberto Carballes Baena – a solid top-100 player for many years who even dipped into the top 50 a couple of years ago?
Possibly. He’ll never know. But he’ll know that he gave it everything he had with the hand he was dealt. There aren’t many Diego Schwartzmans out there. And players topping out at 5-foot-9, as Diez did, suffer a significantly higher physical burden trying to battle the big dogs in a big man’s game. That toll was a tough one for Diez through his career.
Finally, Grand Slam joy
Diez made his first Grand Slam qualifying draw at the Australian Open in 2014, and played the qualifying at the four majors a total of 20 times.
Only once did he get through – he beat Ilya Ivashka, Chris Eubanks and Enzo Couacaud to make the main draw at Roland Garros in 2020 – the Covid fall edition.
It was a time. Basically no fans, masks everywhere – Diez was happy there were no fans, given he was playing a Frenchman in the final round – and both interviewer and interviewee wearing masks outdoors in the French fall weather.
He lost in four sets in the first round of the main draw to American Mackenzie McDonald.
With the better part of 17 years out in the trenches, Diez finally broke the $1 million mark in earnings in 2023 and ended up at $1,061,164 – 30 per cent of which was earned in those Grand Slam qualifying attempts. Which tells you how important it is to get your ranking up to the level where you can play them.
In only three seasons – 2019, 2020 and 2021 – did he break the $100,000 mark in earnings which, with the expenses involved (especially at the lower levels, without comped accommodation), flies out of the bank account pretty quickly.
For years, he travelled with Spanish coach Marcos Roy, who has been working with Rebeka Masarova – a former Roland Garros junior champion who has switched back and forth representing Spain and Switzerland a few times – since the start of 2024.
Diez won 24 pro titles – one Challenger in Burnie, Australia in 2019 with the rest on the Futures circuit, along with nine Futures doubles titles.
And he’s a Davis Cup champion, part of the winning squad in 2022. He also was part of the 2022 ATP Cup winning squad.
Good player, better man
The list of players who replied to Diez’s announcement and wished him well – and called him “Stevie” – tells you that he spread a lot of goodwill: Joao Sousa, Pablo Andujar, Marc Polmans, Andreas Mies, Alexis Galarneau, Kimmer Coppejans, Brayden Schnur were just a few of them.
Married in 2019 to longtime girlfriend Cynthia Marclay and the father of Patrick – who just turned one in June – pet parent to a menagerie, and turning 35 in March, the ranking wasn’t getting anywhere.
It’s never been harder to get out of the Futures abyss. Even at the Challenger level, it’s hard to move up with a lowering of the ranking points.
And so, the writing was on the wall.
He’ll be a great asset to Zheng – not only as a hitting partner, but as a positive, decent man and a good influence as she navigates her return to tennis – and all the challenges of being at the top of the WTA Tour.
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Thank you for this article, Steph. I’m glad to know more about Steven.