How turbulence led Riedi to new altitudes

FPT/Sara Falcao

Although Leandro Riedi's family carries an aviation background, the 22-year-old Swiss diverged to a different path: professional tennis.

Both of Riedi's parents worked as flight attendants, and his older sister Sarah followed in their footsteps, currently working in the same profession. When Riedi first picked up a racquet aged five, little did he know it would turn into a career.

“I'm the only one who didn't continue the family routine,” Riedi told ATPTour.com. “Nobody was into tennis. My dad just played for fun like once a month. He was playing some club matches back in the day in Switzerland. He took me with him once to the court and I enjoyed it a lot.”

Riedi still had a fascination with planes and dreamed of being a pilot. His parents, Roman and Anna, met while they both were attending a flight to Miami. Now his mother works at a first-class lounge at an airport while his father is retired.

Despite working in a profession outside of aviation, the four-time ATP Challenger Tour champion Riedi still does his fair share of travelling. In 2023, the Frauenfeld native visited four different continents to play 22 events. Some players may see the frequent travel as a tedious part of the job, but for Riedi, it is an aspect he enjoys.

“I love to fly because in the air you have no WiFi, nobody disturbs you, you have your own time,” Riedi said. “If I go on a holiday, my vacation starts on the plane. When I was nine, I was already checking which plane it was, how big it was, how many people can go in it. I was just fascinated by the planes. If I didn't do sports, I would try to be a pilot.”

A turbulent stretch of Riedi’s career came at the end of last season. Despite hitting a career-high No. 126 in March, he lost his final nine of 10 matches to close the year, failing to defend 180 points from two Challenger titles the prior season. Riedi fell out of the Top 300 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings at the start of 2024.

“I was just focussing way too much on the ranking and on the points, because I knew I would lose a lot of points because I won two Challengers at the end of 2022,” Riedi said. “I knew if I didn't play well, I would lose a lot of points and drop. I was just thinking to myself, 'Everyone will think I'll be very bad and blah blah blah," and I was like, 'S*%! I need to play well, I want to play well. I was like, 'I need to do my best every single time' and then it backfired completely.”

After the season ended, Riedi took a one-week break, which featured a trip to Dallas, Texas to visit family and watch his favourite NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks. Upon his return to Switzerland, he began a gruelling preseason consisting of one day off — Christmas.

“I was like, 'Okay, I need to see tennis more as a job.' I love my job but in the end, it's my job and not my full life,” Riedi said. “I still have my life besides tennis. Then I just loosened from the pressure a bit, I said, 'Don't focus on those points, don't focus on the ranking, just focus on your daily routine that you can do as best as you can.'”

Riedi’s new approach cultivated the results for which he was aiming. In his first tournament of the year, he captured the Oeiras Indoor 2 without dropping a set. Two weeks later, Riedi was back in the winners’ circle at the BW Open, where he downed Borna Coric in the final.

“It's been a hell of a start to the season for me. I'm very pleased with it,” said Riedi, now World No. 175. “In Belgium [the BW Open], it was a crazy week. I was playing qualies and of course you always want to win the tournament if you're at the tournament, but I was not thinking of winning that tournament at all, just trying to go match by match. In the final against Coric, it was the best moment I've had so far in my career.”

Riedi now looks to build upon his momentum this week at the Terega Open Pau Pyrenees in southern France.

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