The 22-year-old Argentine has gone from losing his place in the world rankings to becoming one of his country’s rising tennis talents. Alongside longtime coach Andrés Chalcoff, he reflects on the setbacks, sacrifices, and unlikely moments that have shaped his journey from Lobos to professional tennis.
By Chloe Wellington-Hunt
X/Instagram: @chloemwhunt
BUENOS AIRES — Three years ago, Lucio Ratti was watching his ATP ranking disappear.
The Argentine tennis player had spent years training, traveling, and competing, but in 2023, the points he had earned the previous season began falling away. The expenses continued to accumulate, the victories became harder to find, and the future he had spent his childhood working toward suddenly felt uncertain.
“And when you don’t feel like you’re performing well, or you’re not able to earn points, it weighs on you quite a bit,” Ratti told World Tennis Magazine in an exclusive interview. “Honestly, I went through some pretty difficult moments.”
His longtime coach, Andrés “Andy” Chalcoff, remembers the period just as clearly.
“We lost the ranking, he dropped out of the rankings, and we had to get back in,” Chalcoff said. “It was starting from zero all over again, and he was able to do it.”
Today, the 22-year-old from Lobos, a city in Buenos Aires Province, has climbed to world No. 369, having reached a career-high No. 364 earlier this year. He has collected three ITF singles titles, reached his first ATP Challenger semifinal, and established himself among a generation of young Argentines looking to break through on the international circuit.
But his ascent has been anything but straightforward.
For Ratti, the difference between the player who lost his ranking and the one now chasing the world’s Top 100 has less to do with a dramatic change in technique than with learning how to compete, manage difficult moments, and believe in his own abilities.
“It’s more that I feel like I still do some of the same things, but I compete differently now, or I manage certain moments better,” Ratti explained. “I think that was the key.”
A childhood in Lobos
Long before professional tennis became a full-time commitment, Ratti was a five-year-old following his older brother onto the tennis courts in Lobos.
His father played tennis, too, and what began as childhood lessons soon turned into competition. Within a couple of years, Ratti was participating in tournaments around his hometown and discovering that he could hold his own against older players.
He also played soccer, but by the time he was nine or ten, he had already made up his mind about which sport he preferred.
“I think it was because it’s more of an individual sport, where everything depended on me,” he said. “It wasn’t something that depended on other people.”
Despite his early commitment to competing, Ratti remembers an upbringing that allowed him to enjoy life beyond tennis.
“I had a really beautiful childhood, honestly, even outside of tennis,” he said, talking about his family and life in Lobos. So yeah, I remember it super happily.”
His parents played a central role, driving him and his older brother to practices and competitions and encouraging their interests without making sports feel like an obligation.
“They always did everything they possibly could to help us achieve our dreams,” he said.
Today, despite spending much of the year traveling internationally, Ratti remains attached to his hometown. When he has time away from the circuit, he returns to Lobos to see friends, drink mate, go fishing, and enjoy the familiar routines of home.
Outside the court, he describes himself as laid-back, though not particularly interested in sitting around doing nothing.
“Even though sometimes I want to spend a little time alone at home, I always try to go somewhere, meet up with friends, drink mate, or go out to eat,” he said.
Eight years, one coach
In 2018, when Ratti was just 14, his family made a decision that would shape the next stage of his tennis career.
They contacted Chalcoff, a coach based in nearby Cañuelas, about bringing their son to train with his academy.
The two already knew each other from junior tournaments. Chalcoff had coached a player who had faced Ratti in a final, and the neighboring cities were separated by just a half-hour drive.
For Chalcoff, Ratti’s talent was only part of what made him an appealing prospect.
“Beyond his tennis level, he was very hardworking, he put in a lot of effort, and he had a personality that really made us want to work with him,” Chalcoff recalled.
What followed was a relationship that eventually extended far beyond the boundaries of a traditional player-coach partnership.
As other young athletes left the academy, some to pursue university studies, Ratti and Chalcoff began spending more time together, including long stretches traveling internationally for tournaments.
The coach watched Ratti navigate the unpredictable emotions of junior tennis, where the excitement of a title could quickly give way to disappointment.
“We started encountering obstacles, moments when we won, moments when we lost, moments of frustration, sadness, and then suddenly becoming champions again,” Chalcoff said.
“It was like an electrocardiogram,” he joked.
Eventually, the teenager he had helped guide through junior tournaments earned his first ATP ranking point.
For Chalcoff, the milestone represented more than simply entering the professional rankings.
“Incredible, how we went through all of this, and now you’re not a child anymore, you’re a man and you’re a professional tennis player,” he recalled thinking.
Their relationship had to evolve accordingly.
“I also had to learn to understand that he was no longer a child,” Chalcoff said. “Instead, I had to think more as if he were a partner, right?”
Ratti was no longer simply following instructions. He was developing his own understanding of the game, making his own decisions, and beginning to challenge his coach’s ideas.
For Chalcoff, that independence was part of the progress.
The years when nothing seemed to work
The transition into professional tennis proved particularly unforgiving.
In 2023, Ratti struggled to sustain his earlier results. He continued traveling and competing but failed to replace the ranking points he had earned in 2022.
For a young player without the financial security of the sport’s highest levels, every tournament represented another investment, with no guarantee of a return.
“I think the hardest moment was probably 2023,” Ratti said. “That was the year when I couldn’t earn a single ranking point, and I lost all the ones I had.”
The disappointment could be overwhelming, particularly immediately after defeats.
“And yeah, sometimes right after you walk off the court, you feel like giving everything up,” he admitted.
But Ratti said he’s able to shake those moments off easily.
“But luckily, those thoughts don’t last very long for me,” Ratti said. “I don’t get too caught up in my own head, and I can move on pretty quickly.”
Chalcoff acknowledged that the difficulties tested both of them. His role as a coach was not simply to identify technical improvements but to maintain a sense of direction when neither of them could find immediate answers.
“I immediately have some kind of solution,” Chalcoff explained of his coaching approach. “I don’t know if it’s the right one, but I immediately have something to propose, right?”
He emphasized that he had always prioritized long-term development over short-term results.
“I wasn’t satisfied with just winning the tournament we had immediately in front of us,” he said. “Instead, I was always thinking about what he needed for the future, so that he could have a certain level of tennis and certain abilities.”
Just as Ratti began rebuilding his ranking, another setback arrived: a wrist injury that left him unable to hit his backhand properly.
Without one of his essential shots, competing became difficult, and Ratti chose to continue training rather than return to tournaments before he felt ready.
There were months of uncertainty, but according to Chalcoff, his player’s commitment never wavered.
“He came to train every single day, always with the best attitude,” the coach said. “He never even said to me, ‘Today I don’t feel good, today I’m a little sad.’”
Chalcoff suspected there were days when Ratti felt discouraged, even if he refused to show it.
“Maybe he was, but he didn’t show it,” Chalcoff said.
That persistence, Chalcoff believes, explains much of what has followed for the young Argentinian.
The breakthrough that changed everything
After years of inconsistency, 2025 marked a turning point.
Ratti captured his first professional singles title at an ITF M15 event in Valledupar, Colombia, and began making significant progress in the rankings.
Toward the end of the year, a victory over Lebanon’s Hady Habib, then ranked around No. 170 according to Ratti, provided another important boost to his confidence.
“And I think that was when I really started believing in myself more,” Ratti said.
The victory was particularly meaningful because it came on a hard court, demonstrating to Ratti that he could compete against higher-ranked opposition beyond his more familiar clay-court environment.
He followed that performance with strong matches in Buenos Aires interclub competition.
“I think that’s also when something clicked for me in terms of the way I compete and how I handle myself,” he explained.
In 2026, the progress continued.
Ratti added ITF singles titles in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and Slovenska Bistrica, Slovenia. He also reached his first Challenger semifinal in Royan, France, and climbed inside the world’s Top 400.
For Chalcoff, however, one particular title carried an especially personal significance.
For roughly three years, the coach had been unable to accompany Ratti on European trips after his father suffered a serious accident. During that period, Ratti continued competing internationally, often without his longtime coach beside him.
“I had gone three years without returning to Europe with him because my father had a serious accident, and he started traveling alone,” Chalcoff said. “We kept training together, but maybe I couldn’t accompany him.”
The financial demands of the professional circuit also meant they had to be selective about which tournaments they attended together.
Ratti, meanwhile, was learning how to manage the pressures of international competition independently.
“He won his first titles while being completely alone,” Chalcoff recalled.
When they finally traveled together again, Ratti captured the title in Slovenia, making the victory particularly emotional for both player and coach.
“But well, that one, as Lucio says, was special because it was also the first time I was able to see him become champion while I was there in person,” Chalcoff said.
Although he had followed Ratti’s previous victories through livestreams whenever possible, sharing the moment in person was different.
“But being there and experiencing it was very special,” Chalcoff said.
A hometown crowd, and a heartbreaking defeat
If the victories abroad demonstrated Ratti’s growth as a professional, September’s Buenos Aires Challenger offered a different kind of milestone.
Competing at the Racket Club, Ratti found himself playing in front of a crowd unlike anything he had experienced before.
Among the spectators were friends, acquaintances, and people from Lobos who had traveled to Buenos Aires to watch him compete.
Some had never seen him play a professional match.
For Ratti, the atmosphere made the occasion unforgettable.
“But I think playing in the Buenos Aires Challenger recently was something different and unique, something I’d never experienced before,” he said. “People from Lobos came to support me, and I had absolutely no idea they were going to be there.”
His opening-round match against experienced Argentine Federico Coria became one of the tournament’s most dramatic encounters.
Ratti took the first set in a tiebreak and led 5-2 in the deciding set, putting himself within reach of a memorable victory. But severe cramping struck as he attempted to close out the match, and Coria rallied to win 6-7(3), 6-3, 7-5.
For Ratti, the ending was devastating. Yet the experience also showed him how much his tennis career meant to the people who had watched him grow up.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t end that well,” he acknowledged. “But yeah, it was an incredible experience, and I really enjoyed it.”
Learning to compete with himself
Ratti describes his playing style as aggressive but controlled, built around taking the initiative rather than simply hitting every ball harder.
His favorite shot is the inside-out forehand, and he prefers dictating points through direction, tactics, and changes of pace.
But as his ranking has climbed, it is the psychological side of the sport that he has come to understand differently.
He acknowledges that the emotional distance between victory and defeat can feel enormous. When he wins, tennis provides a sense of satisfaction that few other experiences can match. When he struggles, the effort of training without seeing results can become difficult to accept.
His response has increasingly been to focus on the decisions he can control.
“I think the key is obviously trying to find the positive side of things or finding a way around whatever is happening,” he said. “Because you know how to play tennis. It’s not like you’ve forgotten how.”
During matches, Ratti sometimes relies on small routines to maintain his concentration: controlling his breathing, bouncing the ball a certain number of times, or placing his towel in a particular spot.
A dream beyond the Top 100
Like many young players trying to establish themselves on the professional circuit, Ratti has a clear benchmark in mind: the ATP Top 100. But for him, the goal represents something more personal than a ranking milestone.
“No, I think it’s both a dream and a life goal,” he said. “Obviously, I want to be ranked even higher than the Top 100.”
Reaching that level would bring a degree of financial stability that remains elusive for many players competing at the ITF and Challenger levels.
After years of sacrifices, travel, and uncertainty, Ratti hopes eventually to earn a comfortable living doing what he has loved since childhood.
“Because at that point, you can make a good living doing something you love,” he shared.
The ambition is considerable, but so is the distance he has already traveled.
From the five-year-old following his brother onto a tennis court in Lobos to the 14-year-old beginning a partnership with Chalcoff, Ratti has spent most of his life working toward a future that remains unfinished.
Asked what he would tell his younger self, particularly the version of himself struggling through 2023, he did not offer any dramatic revelation.
“But I would tell myself to keep trying,” he said. “To keep putting in the same effort and commitment, and to keep looking for solutions.”
Three years later, with his ranking restored, professional titles behind him, and in pursuit of the ATP Top 100, Ratti is doing exactly that.
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