Portuguese tennis players Pedro Araújo, Francisco Cabral and Gonçalo Falcão guaranteed, this Wednesday, March 10, a place in the second round of the Vale do Lobo Open II Magnesium-K Active.
Invited by the organization to the singles main board, Francisco Cabral (1114th in the ATP ranking) was the first tennis player to advance: the absolute national runner-up of 2015, 2016 and 2019 led 4-2 in the first match when the French Maxime Hamou (372nd ATP and second seed) withdrew due to physical problems.
Shortly thereafter, Gonçalo Falcão (1343th) also moved on. Respected from the qualifying phase as lucky loser, the 33-year-old Portuguese defeated Austrian qualifier Peter Goldsteiner (1045th) by 6-2 and 6-3 in 1h32, to add his first singles headline victory in international tournaments since November 2019, in Nulls (Spain).
With these results, the presence of at least one Portuguese in the singles quarter-finals was automatically guaranteed, as Cabral and Falcão will meet forces this Thursday.
And because there are no two without three, the journey did not end before a third Portuguese victory: just as it had happened in the last two weeks, Pedro Araújo (1154th) got back into an ITF tournament on the right foot, when he turned around to the German Lucas Gerch (465th) to add one of the best victories of his career, signed with partials of 2-6, 6-1 and 6-4.
In the second round, the national under-18 champion will face Lucas Poullain (501st), a Frenchman who left the Portuguese Gastão Elias (355th) by the way, by winning 6-1 and 6-3.
“The result was not what I expected, but despite not having played a great game, I can't complain too much. I have to give credit to my opponent, who was very solid. That was the key to the match, he was consistent from the first to the last point and I felt some difficulties in the service that complicated things for me and made me never feel comfortable on the field. Honestly, it was the first round I could ask for, being a seed, but tennis is made up of draws and there are weeks with more luck than others», analyzed the former top 60 ATP, who two weeks ago played a final in this same venue .
In addition to Gastão Elias, two other Portuguese were in the way on Wednesday's journey: Tiago Cação (555th) could not counter the favoritism of Belgian Christopher Heyman (422nd and eighth seed), who won 6- 3 and 6-2, and Fábio Coelho (1353.º), who took the place of Russian Alen Avidzba (champion in Faro, on Sunday), lost 6-1 and 6-4 to German Sebastian Fanselow (435th), who also defeated him the week before.
For this Thursday, the 11th, the meetings of the second round of doubles and the quarter-finals of doubles are scheduled, with emphasis on two duels with the Portuguese involved: Francisco Cabral and Pedro Araújo will face the French Alexis Musialek and Hugo Pontico, while Gonçalo Falcão and Turkey's Tuna Altuna will face Spaniards Jordi Mas de Ugarte and Jose Joaquin Miranda Cisneros.
The Vale do Lobo Open II Magnesium-K Active runs until this Sunday, March 14, on the high-speed courts of Vale do Lobo Tennis Academy, in Loulé, and closes a series of three consecutive weeks of tennis at the highest level in the South from the country.
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