A pair of South American stars have committed to play the 2025 Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Championship.
Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry, will return to ROCC for the third straight year while Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo will make his second Houston appearance when the ATP Tour’s only North American clay court tournament is held March 29-April 6.
These two players will join American Tommy Paul, the winner of three ATP titles in 2024 who was previously announced.
“It’s always a privilege to welcome an international field to River Oaks,” said tournament director Bronwyn Greer. ”We are thrilled to add players from countries with rich tennis traditions like Argentina and Chile and look forward to seeing Tomas and Alejandro compete for our title.”
Etcheverry reached the US Clay final in 2023 and the semifinals in 2024. Over the past two years, only Frances Tiafoe’s 7-1 record bests Etcheverry’s 6-2 mark.
It’s also noteworthy that Etcheverry’s six match wins at River Oaks are equal to his best at any tournament in the world, tied with Roland Garros, where he was a 2023 quarterfinalist at the clay court Grand Slam. The 25-year-old named his dog Roland Garros, so perhaps he needs to get another and name it after our favorite tennis club?
Etcheverry boasts a 40-33 career clay court record. In 2024, he was runner-up in Lyon, semifinalist in Barcelona and reached the quarterfinals at Buenos Aires and Cordoba – all clay court events.
Tabilo will return to River Oaks after a 2024 season in which he won a pair of titles and broke into the ATP’s Top 20 for the first time. He claimed his first career title in January by winning Auckland as a qualifier, then lifted the trophy at the grass court event in Mallorca.
The 27-year-old’s 2024 clay success included a final in Santiago and semifinals at the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome and in Bucharest. The left-handed Tabilo was born and raised in Toronto to Chilean parents, then left home at the age of 13 to train in Florida.
Tabilo reached the second round at US Clay in 2022.
Both Etcheverry and Tabilo represented their countries at the 2024 Paris Olympics where Paul claimed a doubles bronze medal while also reaching the singles quarterfinals.
Paul’s three titles came during a 2024 season in which he won a personal-best 45 match wins posted a career-best year-end ranking of No. 12. He will be making his fourth appearance at River Oaks, where he claimed his first-ever ATP match victory in 2016.
In 2024, Ben Shelton defeated Tiafoe in an all-American singles final while the Australian duo of Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson won their second straight doubles title. The 2025 U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship will be the 15th edition of the century-old tournament to be held at River Oaks Country Club.
