Portuguese Gonçalo Oliveira competes in the final of the Loulé Open

Sidane Pontjodikromo and Niels Visker won in pairs

The Portuguese Gonçalo Oliveira will compete, this Sunday, March 5, in the final of the Loulé Open by Cimpor. To reach the decisive game, the Portuguese tennis player defeated Jesper de Jong.

Playing high-level tennis throughout the week, Gonçalo Oliveira (464th in the ATP ranking) celebrated his fourth victory of the week — all in straight sets — by knocking Jesper de Jong (295th), from the Netherlands Lows and third seed, by 6-4 and 6-4, after 1h38.

«It was a very, very balanced match, but I served very well, I was concentrated and the key was to take advantage of the two opportunities I had in his service to make a break in each set», he said after another triumph.

The four victories on the courts of Clube de Ténis de Loulé allowed Gonçalo Oliveira to break the fast of more than four years with regard to singles finals, with the decision on Sunday, scheduled for 14 pm and broadcast live on Sport TV 00, the first since December 5 in Doha, Qatar.

Playing what he describes as «the best tennis» of his life, the national number six said that the result is a reflection of the work he has been doing over the last few months.

"I've worked so much. The last few days at home have been full of constant work, doing things I haven't been doing and being more professional and I'm happy. The truth is that I've been accompanied by my father and that makes a lot of difference, because for two or three years I traveled alone and distracted myself with other things, but now I'm trying to focus and I want to go back to the Gonçalo that he was before the pandemic ", he said.

Gonçalo Oliveira's final opponent at the Loulé Open by Cimpor will be Lucas Poullain. The Frenchman, number 847 in the world (he was already in 426th position), celebrated nothing more, nothing less than the ninth consecutive victory when he passed the Italian Giovanni Fonio (331st and fourth seed) with the partials of 6- 4 and 7-6(6).

If Oliveira will be looking for his first title since December 9, 2018, when he defeated the Russian Aslan Karatsev to win an ITF of 15.000 dollars in Doha (the following week he played in another final, which he lost), Poullain will try to win the second in two weeks because he was champion of Faro Open last Sunday.

The winner of the final will complete the gallery of champions of the 13th Loulé Open by Cimpor, which later this Saturday afternoon crowned Sidane Pontjodikromo and Niels Visker as winners of the pairs variant.

The two players from the Netherlands surprised the first seeds, Jesper de Jong (also from the Netherlands) and Aidan Mchugh (from Great Britain), with the partials of 4-6, 6-2 and 10-8.

 



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