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The ATP’s South American Swing has come to an end for another year, after a three-week jaunt through Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Because of its location in the tennis calendar, between the end of the Australian Open and the start of “The Sunshine Double” (Indian Wells and Miami), this part of the season can be easy to overlook, but in truth it is often colourful, exciting and often revealing. Here are 10 things to love about tennis in South America.

Ten Things to Love About the ATP’s South American Swing

1.The Full (or Nearly Full) Houses

A lot of professional tennis is played out in front of sparse crowds. Even the first week of the French Open can be relatively under-attended, with many morning or early afternoon games on the show-courts being played out in front of half-empty stands. By complete contrast, the South American Swing of the ATP Tour – constituting the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires, the Rio Open and the Chile Open in Santiago – always seems to attract full or nearly full houses.

Of course, that is a testament to South America’s passion for tennis. Although football (soccer) remains by far the most popular sport on the continent, as will be demonstrated again this summer at the World Cup in North and Central America, there is a long and enduring passion for tennis that manifests itself in the form of bumper crowds. And judging by the number of extremely close matches over the last few weeks, particularly at the Chile Open, all the players involved (whether they hail from South America or not) revel in such an environment.

2. In The Absence of The Huge Two, Closely Contested Tournaments

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have separated themselves so emphatically from the rest of men’s tennis (with the obvious exception of the GOAT, Novak Djokovic, although even he has found it impossible to beat them back to back) that tournaments in which they are competing can seem like a slow progression to an inevitable final between them. In their absence, however, tournaments are invariably more democratic (with far more players having a chance to win them) and dramatic.

That is exemplified by the South American Swing in the last few years, particularly since the widespread lifting of the Covid pandemic restrictions at the start of 2022. Since then, only Sebastian Baez has really proven himself to be a contender for the title of “The King of South American Tennis”, by winning the Rio Open twice (in 2024 and 2025) and the Chile Open once (in 2024). Otherwise, there have been many different winners of the three biggest tournaments in South America, and that inevitably creates far greater interest and intrigue.

3. Clay-Court Tennis – Before the European Clay-Court Season

One of the greatest attributes of tennis is that it is really three sports in one, with differing forms of it being played on hardcourt, grass and clay. Each of the three main surfaces used in tennis has its particular qualities and demands. However, for those who love clay-court tennis above all, principally because it is harder to hit winners on clay and so there are often longer rallies on it than on faster surfaces, the South American Swing of the ATP Tour allows them to watch clay-court tennis before the European clay-court season begins.

All three of the biggest events in South America are played on the “terre battue” (or beaten earth). Consequently, competing in them allows players to begin preparing for the French Open and the European clay-court season that precedes it far earlier than those players who are not in South America. However, it also allows the clay-court specialists on tour (of whom there are no shortage, especially from South America and the Mediterranean) to ply their trade on their favourite surface for much longer throughout the season than they would otherwise be able to.

4. The History of South American Tennis

The Rio Open in its current form may only date back to 2014, but both the Argentina Open (which began in 1927) and the Chile Open (which began in 1935) have far longer histories. In any case, the history of South American tennis as a whole stretches even further back, and the vibrancy and sheer competitiveness of the South American Swing each year are a constant reminder of that history.

In the Open era, seven South American players (five men and two women) have won Major Singles titles, including such titans of the game as Maria Bueno (who won Majors in both the pre-Open and Open eras), Guillermo Vilas, Gabriela Santini, Gustavo Kuerten and Juan Martin del Potro. And the fact that they all had to win Majors not just outside their home country but outside their home continent is proof of both their enormous talent and their ability to travel well.

5. The Future of South American Tennis

In the form of the young Brazilian sensation, Joao Fonseca, South America should have at least one realistic Major-contender in the future. Fonseca, of course, really captured the imagination of tennis fans at the end of 2024 when he won the NextGen Event. And if his progress since then hasn’t always been serene, mainly because of his having to deal with a long-standing back problem, he has still shown enough to suggest that he might one day follow in the footsteps of his illustrious counterparts Bueno and Kuerten by becoming the third Brazilian to win a Major Singles title.

However, if Fonseca is the flag-bearer for South American tennis, he is not alone in being a current player of great promise from the continent. In particular, the two best contemporary Argentinian male players, Francisco Cerundolo and Sebastian Baez, have both proven themselves to be so adept on South American clay that it is surprising that they are yet to translate that form into anything like comparable achievement on European clay. Maybe 2026 will finally be the year that they manage that.

6. The Colour

The ATP Tour is a veritable rainbow-trail of colour as it traverses the world, but the uniquely bright or burnt orange of South American clay is a particularly aesthetically pleasing part of it. It certainly provides a striking contrast to the predominantly blue hardcourts of Australia and Melbourne Park in particular, which is the dominant colour-coding at the start of the tennis year. And for tennis fans in northern Europe and north America in particular, where the over-riding colour scheme at the start of this year seems to have been sheet-metal grey, this burst of colour has been especially welcome.

7. The Sunshine

…And the same is even truer of the sunshine in which the South American Swing, which takes place during South America’s winter, is almost always played out.

8. The Rivalry Between Different South American Nations

If the sheer number of fans who pack out the tournaments on the South American Swing are its greatest attraction, then its second greatest attraction might just be the rivalry between those fans, which is particularly evident when players from Argentina, Brazil and Chile (traditionally the three most successful South American tennis nations) play each other. Things might not get as heated as they do in the clashes between the soccer teams of those nations, but there is still a wonderfully loud and combative environment in which the players of those nations seem to thrive.

It was evident last week at the Chile Open when for a couple of rounds Sebastian Baez was proving to be “The Great Slayer of Chileans”, as he beat Cristian Garin and Alejandro Tabilo in successive rounds. However, perhaps the greatest recent achievement by a South American player competing on the continent but outside their home country came last year, when Joao Fonseca won his first ever title by winning in Buenos Aires, in the process beating no fewer than three Argentinian players.

9. The Variety

So much of men’s tennis is concentrated in the two main markets of Western Europe and North America that it can be easy to forget the rest of the tennis world – except when the South American Swing is on. Then, the tennis players and fans of Latin America remind everyone else why they are deserving of much greater attention than they usually receive.

In the wake of Joao Fonseca’s triumphant start to the 2025 Australian Open, in which he beat ninth seed Andrey Rublev in the first round, it was even mooted that South America should be the next continent or region to host a Masters tournament. Since then, of course, it has been announced that the next Masters tournament will be in Saudi Arabia, not South America, for obvious financial reasons.

Nevertheless, if Fonseca can become the first South American since Juan Martin del Potro at the US Open in 2009 to win a Major Singles title, then the clamour for a Masters tournament in Rio or Buenos Aires, or possibly rotating between the two in the same way that the Canadian Open rotates between Montreal and Toronto, could become undeniable.

10. A Chance To Spot Future Stars

Finally, precisely because it does not always attract all of the biggest stars on the ATP Tour (because of its relative geographical remoteness), the South American Swing has recently become the perfect place to see future stars before they fully explode into the public consciousness. The classic example, of course, is Carlos Alcaraz in Rio in 2022, when he not only built on his impressive showing at the 2021 US Open by winning his first ATP title but in the process served notice of his preposterously preternatural talent.

Four years on from Alcaraz’s amazing feats of escapology, it might just be Luciano Darderi who emerges from a fine run in South America to do great things on other continents. Darderi has almost been “The Invisible Italian” in rising to just outside the world’s top 20 without attracting any of the fanfare of compatriots such as Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Musetti and Flavio Cobolli.

However, after reaching the second week of a Slam for the first time at the Australian Open in January, he has followed up spectacularly by being the best player on the 2026 South American Swing, first reaching the final in Rio and then winning the title in Santiago. It is extraordinarily unlikely that he will match Alcaraz’s historic achievements since 2022, but he could still be the latest player to shine first in South America before shining everywhere else afterwards.