'400 is quite a lot!' Santiago Gonzalez hits wins milestone in Barcelona

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Matías and Camila are scampering around the lawn that surrounds the swimming pool at the Real Club de Tennis Barcelona-1899. They are waiting for a hug from their father, Santiago Gonzalez, who is still yet to return from Court 2, where he has just achieved an historic feat.

The Mexican, who forms a team this week with Edouard Roger-Vasselin, sealed his 400th victory on Monday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. The duo came through their first-round match against the Australian pair Alex de Minaur and Jordan Thompson, 6-2, 7-5, in one hour and 16 minutes.

“What does the figure mean to you?” ATPTour.com when Gonzalez eventually arrived. “That I’m old, definitely,” the Mexican laughed, before expressing the pride he feels at having won so many matches over his long professional career.

“I’m very happy to have reached that number of victories in my career and even more so now that I’m over 40,” he continued. “The truth is that I’m very happy, when you start you never imagine how far you can go. 400 wins is quite a lot.”

The truth of the matter is that ‘Santi’ won his first PIF ATP Doubles Rankings point last century. Specifically, in November 1999 at a Futures event in his home country.

However, he didn’t open his account of ATP Tour wins until February 2009, when he claimed a victory in Acapulco. With Bruno Echagaray by his side, he defeated Dick Norman and Rogier Wassen 6-3, 6-2.

“I still have the energy and desire to get a few more,” he said fifteen years after his first win. “It’s also special to share it here with my family at a tournament I have enjoyed coming to throughout my career. I’m very happy about that and that there is a Mexican with that record.”

At 41 years of age, the veteran doubles player is currently in the form of his life.

“2023 was, without a doubt, the best year of my career, I’m proud of finding resilience at this age,” he added.

In fact, Gonzalez earned five of the 23 trophies that grace his cabinet last season. With Roger-Vasselin, he won Marseille, the ATP Masters 1000 in Miami, Los Cabos, Basel and the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris, to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals.

At the start of this season he joined forces with Neal Skupski, with whom he has already played two finals. In the last of them, in Acapulco, the Mexican had his first shot at win number 400, but Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski had other ideas.

“It was a shame not being able to put the cherry on the cake in the final, winning the title at home. But it wasn’t to be,” acknowledged Gonzalez. “Nor was it to be in Indian Wells, Miami, or Monte Carlo. We had several chances but didn’t get it done.”

He finally did it on a stage where he already knows what it is to lift the title (in 2011) and where he defeated World No. 1 team Bob and Mike Bryan to take the crown. “Beating the world No. 1 pair was perhaps one of the most special wins of my career,” he admitted.

When asked to finish the sentence “400 wins is great, but...”, Gonzalez was in no doubt where his intentions lie. Without hesitation, he replied: “But 500 would be better!”