Albert Ramos-Vinolasis one win away from his first title of the season…
The 31-year-old Spanish tennis player has reached his first ATP Tour final of the season at the Swiss Open Gstaad on Saturday with a 7-6(3), 6-4 victory against 2014 champion Pablo Andujar.
“I’m really happy,” Ramos-Vinolas said. “I have a chance to play another final tomorrow here in Gstaad. I love this tournament, I feel great. I’m really happy and I’m ready to give my 200 percent.”
Ramos-Vinolas has won all eight of his sets this week, defeating three of the ATP 250tournament’s seeds.
Entering the semifinals, Ramos-Vinolas had only emerged victorious in one of seven previous head to head meetings against Andujar, but Ramos-Vinolas claimed 43 percent of his first-serve return points en route to victory in one hour and 54 minutes.
Ramos-Vinolasis into his first tour-level final since Quito last year. Ramos-Vinolas has made six championship matches, with his lone ATP Tourtitle coming at Båstad in 2016.
The former World No. 17 was broken first in the match, giving Andujar a 5-3 lead after Ramos-Vinolas couldn’t stave off a sixth break point of the game. But he broke back immediately, and stormed to a 4/0 lead in the first-set tie-break, never looking back from there.
There was a rain delay with two points remaining in the match, but Ramos-Vinolas won two points upon the resumption to go through.
“It’s never easy, but I felt good,” Ramos-Vinolas said. “I won a little bit of a lucky point the last point before we stopped… it was difficult for me, but I thought it was more difficult for him.”