Jaime Faria arrived at the Tennis and Padel Center in Faro with a trophy in his luggage and this Sunday, March 3rd, he added one more by becoming champion of the Faro Open, the longest running international tournament in Portugal.
Champion in Vila Real de Santo António last Sunday, the 20-year-old Portuguese tennis player (ranked 391st in the world rankings) gave Lithuanian Vilius Gaubas (358th) no chance and won by a clear 6-1 and 6-3.
Growing throughout the week, which opened with a victory of 3h03, Jaime Faria scored this Sunday the most authoritative of triumphs in the Algarve capital.
With more weapons and more solutions than Gaubas, who lived for several years in Portugal and was trained by Pedro Pereira, the young man from the High Performance Center of the Portuguese Tennis Federation opened the decision with a break of serve and set the tone for the that would follow.
Always very confident in his opening shot (he won 81% of the points with his first serve), the Lisbon native prepared himself for Gaubas' reaction in the second game, gritted his teeth and never allowed the Lithuanian to stage a recovery, resolving the duel in 77 minutes.
«I'm a little speechless because it was a special two weeks», he revealed at the end, amidst many smiles and still digesting yet another triumph.
«This was the match in which I managed to be the most superior from start to finish. I felt that Vilius was tired from the beginning. It came after a week in which he played a final on a different surface and in Turkey, so he was already tired and only until the semi-final did he spend nine hours on the field, three for each game. So I knew he was tired and that if I sent the message that I was going to be superior from the beginning that could help me make a difference", added the student from the High Performance Center of the Portuguese Tennis Federation, this week accompanied by Gonçalo Nicau.
In analysis of the campaign he designed at the Tennis and Padel Center in Faro, Jaime Faria did not hide his surprise at the way he turned around at the start of the week.
«I'm surprised because the beginning was quite complicated. Having won a title on Sunday and perhaps on Wednesday with Duarte Vale, which was very competitive, was a kind of shock. We had a three-hour battle and I thought I could leave in the first round, but I managed to turn things around and from then on I focused game by game and above all on recovering, because I knew I was tired from the previous week", he said. .
On Monday, Jaime Faria will climb 44 places in the ranking to 347th place, but this ranking does not yet reflect the points gained throughout this week in the Faro Open. When this title is counted, the young Portuguese will gain another three dozen positions.
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