Marcelo Rios was from Chile, but was he Chinese? If not, then why was he called "El Chino?"?

Question

Marcelo Rios was from Chile, but was he Chinese? If not, then why was he called "El Chino?"?

Answer 1

Because of his curly hair...duh.

Answer 2

Both of Marcelo Rios' parents are Chilean. He was nicknamed "El Chino" (The Chinese) because he looks Asian.

Answer 3

Rios was Chilean.  Maybe they called him El Chino because of the way he looked.  Or maybe in Chile "Chino" is a slang word that means something other than chinese.

He was a great player, former #1, pure talent, just needed more heart.

Answer 4

It was because of his looks, rios was an excellent player, very talentous and I just see one player today that is better than him, Federer. He was a classic, so much touch and less power. I disagree that he needed more heart, in my opinion and its kinda of a consense he had discipline problems, he wasnt very much the trainning guy type, if you know what i mean, and never cared so much about the phisics either, a big waste of talent. An example today is Nalbandian, a great player but out of shape, cares more about the personal life than his career, i guess we amateurs dont know how hard is the circuit to judge this indiscipline.