The Portuguese Gonçalo Oliveira won, this Sunday, the Loulé Open by Cimpor, an international tournament worth US$25.000 that the Clube de Ténis de Loulé organized for the 13th time with the support of the Municipality of Loulé and the Portuguese Tennis Federation.
Delayed about four hours due to rain, this Sunday's final had little history - similar to what happened in the four previous meetings won by the 28-year-old Portuguese tennis player, currently in 464th place in the ATP ranking. 6-3 and 6-2 were the partials that in 1h24 allowed him to defeat the Frenchman Lucas Poullain (847th), the champion of the Faro Open a week ago they reached the final with nine straight wins.
The task of taking the initiative against an opponent who likes to “wait” on the bottom line suited Oliveira like a glove. Because before the final he didn't know Poullain, the player from Porto (who has lived in the Algarve for several years) took advantage of the first games to study the weight and height of the Frenchman's ball, waited for the right timing and then went on the attack.
The service break (in white) that decided the first set came in the eighth game, but Oliveira had already threatened in the previous games by taking advantage of the ability to force Poullain to constantly move from one side of the line to the other to have much more space empty to explore.
This was the first time in the whole week that Poullain lost a match, but the French tennis player did not lose heart and right at the start of the second match he managed a blank break. But Oliveira's reaction to the slight drop in concentration was immediate and, also with a blank break, the national number six went on the attack again and never stopped: in a flash, he won six games in a row and only rested when he heard the so awaited “game, set and match“.
“It's the first singles title I've won in Portugal, so I'm very happy”, said Gonçalo Oliveira at the end. “It's the result of a lot of work at home, with my father and with my team, and it's the result of a number of things: I'm more mature, more focused, I know what I need to do and I don't waste time on things anymore. unnecessary. There are players who mature earlier, I matured a little later, but now everything is falling into place.”
Surprised by the campaign he signed in a tournament in which he did not lose a set, and from which he left with an important 25 points to rebuild his evolution in the ranking (he was 194th in December 2017), the Portuguese tennis player was confident about the future: “This title gives me confidence for what's to come and I feel that playing at this level I won't be in these tournaments for long.”
Vasco Costa, president of the Portuguese Tennis Federation, said: “I want to congratulate the organization, the sponsors and the Municipality of Loulé, which supports the tournament. This is the fourth tournament, there are still two left in the series of six in a row here in the Algarve, and I'm very happy because in the four that have already taken place, we've had two victories by Portuguese players. That's what we work for and I'm really happy to see it's happening. And these tournaments all had very strong cadres, which gives even more merit to the titles”.
For his part, Luís Pedro, director of the tournament, considered that, “it was a very strong tournament, which even had a player who was already in the top 30 in the world. We had a significant range of Portuguese athletes and it's been a few years since we had a Portuguese winner, but luckily today that happened. Congratulations are due to Gonçalo Oliveira, the organization is to be congratulated and all those who collaborate are to be congratulated”.
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