There is a somewhat clichéd phrase in the world of sport in general, and tennis in particular, that true champions are born with something special inside of them. Although it may be reliable, there is also another reality: it is up to each athlete to build their own opportunity to write great stories, which are written day by day.
Nicolas Pereira is one of those cases — he became the best tennis player in the history of Venezuela based on a great effort, he was among the best 100 professional tennis players in the world and many other achievements, but in 1988, the current representative of the #TeamSpornatic was the best youth in the world showing all their talent on the most important stages in the world.
Nicolás was born in Salto, Uruguay in 1970, but at the young age of 3 he had to migrate with his parents to Venezuela, due to the military dictatorship that the country suffered in those years.
His childhood was not so simple, his mother was a law student and his father an accountant, but when they arrived in the new country they had to fight to put food on the table. But those situations made Nicolás stronger and helped him focus on tennis, his great passion.
From a very young age he began to win different tournaments, because since he was 8 he was already crowned in national tournaments, so his parents make a difficult decision, send him to the United States to finish his development as a tennis player and it was a very hard decission for him, because he was young and could only see his family every three months.
In the meantime, it was the birth of a new youth tennis star. After a year of starting his adventure in the North American country, he had to return to Venezuela due to different economic problems.
Nicolás makes a bet with his father that would change his life, and 1988 was the turning point: imagine winning Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open, to become junior world champion of the International Tennis Federation, so his father would support him to drop out of school and devote himself completely to tennis.
Showing some daunting weapons–6-foot-2 and 190 pounds with a deadly serve-and-volley game, Nico was the first to win all three since Stefan Edberg in 1983. Edberg has gone on to win three Grand Slam titles, including Wimbledon.
Growing up, Pereira admired the classic serve-and-volley style of Boris Becker, Yannick Noah and John McEnroe, but also the fluid baseline grace of Mats Wilander. “You can find something interesting and useful in every tennis player,” Pereira said.
Since that moment, his professional career reap many rewards though the transition from a promising player to a Champion was not always easy.
In fact, with time, Pereira started seeing tennis not just as a win or lose sport, recovering his passion for the game, in addition to focusing on other hobbies such as photography.
In 1994 he managed to win the first ATP title in Bogota, and two years later, Nico managed to win his second title, the prestigious World Hall of Fame in Newport, reaching world number 74 (his best position). This made him the only Venezuelan in history to win an ATP title.
In 1997, a discomfort in his shoulder was getting worse and worse, so he did not continue it. He then realized that it was the end, and without any announcement or farewell, he retired.
HIs CV says Pereira won 9 singles and 13 doubles titles on the ATP Tour, a gold medal at the 1995 Central American Games and a 1996 silver medal at the Pan American Games. We can also add his participation in the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, where he was eliminated in the second round.
After his retirement, Pereira has worked as tennis journalists on Canal1 / CD7 (Ecuador), Globovisión TV / Meridiano TV (Venezuela), City TV (Colombia) and PSN In 2001, Pereira joined the ESPN sports channel commentators group . He is usually present in tennis broadcasts, accompanied by José Luis Clerc and Luis Alfredo Álvarez, among others. In 2017 he moved to the Sony Channel.
Something that will remain merely for the memory was that Pereira was able to defeat Pete Sampras, also in 1988 by a double 7-6, one of the best tennis players in history, for this and much more, he will always have a small chapter in the interesting history of tennis and an example that the effort to be their best version and the legacy they will leave is in the hands of each athlete.