The Spell Is Cast....

Guillermo Coria turns pro and the battles begin! Magic proves a tricky force to handle!

It is Year 2000...

It was the turn of the millennium, and the turning of fate for Guillermo Coria, who turned 18 and turned pro on January 13.

From the results of the previous year, Guille made his entry into the ATP rankings at # 736.

In his first full year on tour, Coria played in 18 events, winning 2 Futures tournaments, qualifying for his first Grand Slam event (at Roland Garros) and earning $106,240 US.

He could definitely afford to have someone ELSE do his laundry now!

Of special note, Coria finished the season winning four Challenger tournaments in a row on the Ericsson circuit: Lima, Sao Paulo-2, Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

And with that blast of a finish, Coria ended his first year of professional play world-ranked # 88.

Next step was achieved early in 2001: In February, he won his first ATP tournament in Vina del Mar where he beat Calleri, Lopez, Zabaleta, and then Gaston Gaudio in the final.

Guille is building momentum and rising to his dream.

He advanced to the finals in Mallorca and achieved his first Masters Series semifinal in Monte Carlo where he was beaten by Roland Garros champion Gustavo Kuerten.

Having started the year ranked # 88, Guille had made it as high as #25. But another turn was coming, one impossible to see and impossible to deal with.

Less than a month later, on August 6, 2001 at the start of TMS Cincinnati, he is informed the test result came back positive for metabolites of the banned substance Nandrolone, and he is suspended from play for seven months. He also must forfeit his ranking points, which dropped the Argentine from 30 to 200 on the computer, as well as having to pay a hefty fine of $100,000.

He was only 19 at the time, and was removed from Hopman & Davis Cup play immediately. He took it upon himself to prove to the ATP – as he did, during the November Tribunal in Miami – that he was indeed innocent of all charges. As it turns out, the manufacturer of an over the counter vitamin supplement (made in the United States) had Nandrolone in the ingredients without listing it on the label.

While the Tribunal publically agreed that Coria had taken the banned substance unknowingly and that “he acted reasonably to fully abide by the Tennis Anti-Doping Program rules”, Guillermo still lost seven months of play, momentum, ranking points, and money. And suffered the slings and arrows of doubt from players and press alike.

Devastated by an unfairly harsh punishment, considering he was cleared of the offenses charged (other than that the unlabeled substance was inevitably ingested), Guillermo used his free time to successfully sue the company for misrepresentation of their product.

But ultimately what Time tells is that, after that August 6 match in Cincinnati, Coria is not seen in a pro event again until March 11, 2002.

He won two Challenger events, advanced to the third round of Roland Garros and US Open, and the semifinal on clay in Houston.

Easily the highlight of 2002 comes near the end of the year when Coria reaches the final of Brazil and holds a championship point before succumbing once again to Gustavo Kuerten 6-7 7-5 7-6 in a thrilling match that could do nothing but inspire confidence in the future.

Guille pulls his ranking from 198 back up to #45 and earns $300,000 prize money. It was a soul-wrenching journey back, but now the Argentine is about to explode. 2003 will change everything.

Guille begins the year by reaching the fourth round at the Australian Open where he loses at the hands of his childhood tennis hero and that year’s eventual champion, Andre Agassi. He is beginning to touch the sky.

In February, Alberto Mancini becomes his coach. Hark The Herald Angels Sing! This is one of those rare super-combinations of characters that stir a Magic Pot to boil over in the extreme. He immediately reaches the final of Buenes Aires beating Acasuso, Zabeleta, Nalbandian, and Gaudio before falling to Carlos Moya, who --after this day-- Guille would never lose to again!

In Monte Carlo, he goes through Blake, Nadal, Chela, and Moya to reach the final, losing to soon-to-be- Roland Garros champion, Juan-Carlos Ferrero. In May, he wins his first TMS title in Hamburg. He likes it.

He also enters the top ten for the first time, reaching #7 on May 19.

Then, at his always-dreamt-of French Open, and with Guillermo Vilas and Gabriela Sabatini smiling in his box, he gets revenge for his Australian Open defeat by downing Andre Agassi in four masterful sets of clay court prowess. He is almost apologetic to his hero at net, as he takes in the enormity of his first major breakthrough.

Whether by letdown or from the pressure he placed on himself in his first ever Grand Slam semifinal appearance, Guille is upset by the giant-killer of the event, Martin Verkerk. But he'll be back.

Far from being crushed, but rather inspired, Guillermo Coria begins to mold legend out of those clay courts for the rest of the year.

He wins 3 events in a row without dropping a set: Loses only 19 games total in 5 matches taking Stuttgart (wins the 3-set final losing only 5 games), loses only 23 games in 5 matches winning Kitzbuhel (losing only 7 games in the 3-set final), and then loses only 25 games in 5 matches to reign in Sopot.

His three titles in three weeks matched a feat last achieved in professional tennis by Thomas Muster in 1996, and he does so winning a career-best 15 consecutive matches and all 32 sets!

Oddly, he meets Andre Agassi a third time in a Grand Slam occasion at the US Open, and loses that hard court dual respectably. But picks up where he left off immediately winning indoors at Basel, and qualifies for his first Tennis Masters Cup, along with countryman David Nalbandian, being the first Argentinian duo since 1982 when Clerc and Vilas accomplished the feat.

Coria ends the year as the 5th ranked player in the world, becoming the first Argentine man to finish top 5 since his namesake Guillermo Vilas over 20 years ago.

He was also the first since Vilas and Clerc to win five titles in a single season, and had a boastful 56-1 mark on tour when winning the first set of a match, as well as an unflinching 12-0 record against his countryman.

If you want to guess at what a difference a year makes, Guille’s prize money for 2003 was $ 1,955,409 US.

That’s of course without the Mercedes he won in Hamburg.

2004. What a journey ahead!

Returning to Buenos Aires, where all the good fortune began with Mancini a year ago, Guille wins, this time beating Moya in the final 6-4 6-1.

But in what is still seen by many to be an odd choice of youthful restlessness, Coria opts for a coaching change, replacing Mancini with Fabian Blengino.

Said Coria simply of Mancini, “I have a lot of respect for him. I want to keep private why we split. I still owe him a lot. I always respect him, and I feel we did get along very well, but I just felt I needed a change.”

He didn’t change the basics, however: the habit of winning.

And while he struggled on the hard courts, he makes the finals of the mammoth two-week Miami Nasdaq tournament, and dramatically takes the first set against big-serving Andy Roddick before coming down with a perplexing attack of kidney stones and having to retire after suffering an immobilized third set.

Drama, we must remember, is not unknown to finding its way into the life of Guillermo Coria, which would soon define the year for El Mago.

He sweeps through 6-rounds of Monte Carlo, beating Nalbandian and Safin, and taking the title by burying Schuettler 6-2 6-1 6-3.

Having now not lost a match on clay since the 03 French SF--a 31 match winning streak-- he makes the final of Hamburg and takes the first set from world #1 Roger Federer, but succumbs to the world’s best player in four sets.

Despite this loss in the test against Federer, with just a week’s rest until the start of the French Open, Guille is still seen as the favorite to take his first Grand Slam title, Federer or no Federer.

In one of the easiest starts to a French Open final in history, with Guille winning the first 11 of 12 games and rushing to a 6-0 6-3 lead against fellow Argentine Gaston Gaudio, it was as American announcer Mary Carillo later put it, “Up two sets to love and cruising to sure victory, El Mago, the magician, made the wrong guy disappear.”

Carla Coria looks on in horror as the unimaginable happens: After playing crushingly perfect tennis for over two sets, Guille can barely chase a ball.

Guillermo says he had begun to dream about victory when he was two games away from the title at 6-0 6-3 4-4 when Gaudio recovered from 40-0 down to break serve. Then, Guille was struck by cramps from his nerves after losing a tight third set and all but conceded the fourth by serving at half-pace and refusing to run.

Stranger still, Gaston Gaudio later admits that he was on the brink of quitting the final when he was 6-0 5-1 down. "I was telling my coach 'I don't want to be here'," said the 25-year-old.

Coria gathered himself and on two occasions held a match point, but after failing to convert on either, a wearied Coria fell 8-6 in the fifth. Few who watched it could recall ever seeing anything stranger.

Beautiful Guillermo Coria accepts the elusive nature of pursuit.

An honorary Grand Slam winner if ever there was one, every truly great story has its moment of profound disappointment.

Remarkably and admirably, Coria reached the s'Hertogenbosch final two weeks later, after having never even won a match on grass in his professional career, and proceeded to win his first match at Wimbledon in what proved to be the longest match in that tournaments 100-plus year history! Due to inclement weather, but also to the five long brutal sets played, the match concluded three days after it began, with Coria exalted but exhausted.

Guille slipped and fell over and over on the grass courts. It was comic but his Latin pride hated it.

Shoulder surgery has ended many players careers, so it was with great care that on August 9, Guille had the surgery in Spain. The procedure would keep him out of tennis for three months, missing the US Open.

He returns to competition with no expectations in November, only for the Masters Cup, qualifying for the second year in a row, even after missing almost half the season.

It’s a last chance to have substantial competition—in the world’s best 8 players—before returning to the circuit in 2005 with the Australian Open.

But first, there is an announcement on November 5 that Spaniard Josep Perlas will be his new coach, to begin training in December. And while he predictably doesn’t win any of his three Masters Cup matches, the real question on everybody’s mind is, “Can he recover from such a mind-bending loss on such a grand world stage?”

The answer may well be, if you believe in magic, yes.

A surprise in 2005. For the first time in his career, Guille makes the Round of 16 in every Grand Slam of the year, which proves his most consistent season on record, despite recovering from shoulder surgery.

In Monte Carlo, he beats former King of Clay, Juan Carlos Ferrero in straight sets, but loses to a rising King of Clay, 19-year old Rafael Nadal of Spain.

An unexpected challenge greets El Mago, but that is life. He rises to it, and plays what is considered one of the classic matches of ATP history—and officially, the LONGEST match in ATP history— in a war against Nadal in the Rome final, in which he inevitably falls two shots short, 8 points to 6 in the 5th set tiebreak.

He didn't win, but he won the love and respect of many. John McEnroe told the crowd afterward that it was an honor to say he was there to have seen it.

The great coincidence between the 2005 Rome final and the 2004 French final is that in both of these heartbreaking loses, Coria was surging toward victory when the CROWD interrupted the flow of fate and rejuvenated his foe.

At the French, the crowd had gone into an extended Mexican Wave, which shook Gaudio free of his nerves and tensed Coria’s. Gaudio even thanked the crowd, for without them, he said, he would surely have lost in straight sets.

This is followed by a number of accusations throughout the year of player dislike of Coria, the loaner, who keeps to himself and complains about line calls, even though, in reality, he has cut down on the questioning of calls quite a bit.

There is much talk, either for or against, by players, fans, and the media on the topic of Guillermo Coria. Most of it distracting and unnecessary.

Still, Bad Boy that he is, he could not help get his hands dirty on a few occasions.

He is part of a highly controversial Davis Cup match against the disagreeable Lleyton Hewitt of Australia, replete with crotch-grabbing, mockery, and rule-defying antics, for which both players are fined.

Guille, for the purposes of Davis Cup, is re-united with Coach Mancini. Time and distance apart, they are still naturals for each other.

Guille garnered his ninth career title in Umag, beating Ferrero and Moya on the way, and ends his tournament drought to the glorious sound of fireworks.

However, as nothing ever moves in a straight line for El Mago, he mysteriously develops problems with his serve at this time, misplacing as many as 21 double faults in a single match. It is less about technique and more about nerves and uncertainty. But he endures the irritation of this new quirky trouble.

He ends the season without Perlas as coach. They part ways in mutual understanding that this pairing did not work out. But more uncertainty is the result.

While Grand Slam performances are consistent (he is one of only THREE players on the tour to reach the R16 in all of the Slams!), he did reach a career best Wimbledon performance, along with career-tying best Australian and US Open performances.

The hard work is paying off even if the road is not always clear...

And after a disappointing loss in the R16 at the French Open to Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko, it proves not such an upset after all, as Davydenko ends the year as the world’s 7th ranked player, one spot ahead of Coria.

Guillermo Coria strengthens his near-perfect body at the US Open.

No one said it would be easy. It was a year where Guille had to grow up fast under tremendous scrutiny and pressure.

But with the close of the 2005 season, Guillermo Coria became the first Argentine to finish in the world's Top 10 for three straight years since Jose-Luis Clerc from 1980-1983.

His fans, his family, his country are remarkably proud.

So what about 2006, you say?

"You have to believe we are Magic"

Here's to another great year of adventure!