Pablo Cuevasis back in a final…
The 33-year-old Uruguayan professional tennis player beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 on Saturday to reach the Estoril Open final.
It’s Cuevas’ first final appearance since the 2017 Brasil Openand the 10th of his career.
Cuevas has won 11 of his last 13 matches on clay court. And he has now won three or more matches in two of his last four tournaments.
He’ll face top-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas, who defeated David Goffin 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Pablo Carreno Busta is celebrating a big win…
In a match involving the two lowest remaining men’s seeds, the 25-year-old Spanish tennis player, seeded at No. 21, edged 27th-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 6-1, 3-6 7-6 (4) at the Indian Wells Masters.
Cuevas tied it 3-all in the tiebreak before Carreno Busta won the final five points to close out the two-hour match.
It was the biggest singles quarterfinal of their respective careers. Carreno Busta had not reached that stage of a Masters 1000 event in 17 previous tries; Cuevas hadn’t been there in 29 tries.
Carreno Busta avenged his loss to Cuevas in the Sao Paulo semifinals on March 6 and in the process snapped Cuevas’ seven-match winning streak.
Carreno Busta will play No. 3 Stan Wawrinka in the semifinals.
It’s a three-peat for Pablo Cuevas.
The 31-year-old Argentine-born Uruguayan tennis player beat Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas, 6-7 (7-3), 6-4, 6-4, in a rain-affected final to make history by claiming his third straight Brasil Open title.
The match was postponed on Sunday night when heavy rain forced players off the court with Ramos-Vinolas leading Cuevas 7-6 (3), 3-3.
Play finally resumed on Monday night after almost 24 hours of constant rain at the outdoor clay court venue here.
Cuevas took control immediately after the restart before wrapping up the match.
It was Cuevas’ sixth ATP singles title, all of which have been on clay.
Pablo Cuevas is gunning for a three-peat …
The 31-year-old Argentine-born Uruguayan tennis player will go for a record third consecutive Brasil Open title on Sunday.
Cuevas dismissed top seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain 6-3, 7-6(2) on Saturday in Sao Paulo to give himself a chance for the three-peat.
The third-seed won 82 percent of his first-serve points and feasted on Carreno Busta’s second serves, taking 70 percent of those points.
Since the first edition of the Brasil Open, in 2001, no player has won back-to-back-to-back titles at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament.
Spaniard Nicolas Almagro won back-to-back crowns in 2011-2012 but fell in the quarter-finals to David Nalbandian in 2013.
Cuevas has avoided such slip-ups this week.
He’ll try to win his sixth career ATP World Tour title – all on clay – against second seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Cuevas leads their head-to-head series 3-1. The Spaniard erased a match point on Saturday against Portuguese Joao Sousa to win his semifinal 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-2 on the red clay.
Sousa had the match on his racquet, serving at 5-4 in the second set. The fourth seed fell behind 0/40 but crawled back into the game and led at ad-in. But Ramos-Vinolas erased the match point with a sharp forehand up the line that Sousa netted.
The Spaniard would earn the break and take the final nine of 11 games to claim the three-hour and three-minute semi-final.
Ramos-Vinolas last played in an ATP World Tour title match in October at the Chengdu Open in China (l. to Khachanov). He’ll be going for his second ATP World Tour crown after taking his maiden title last July on clay at the Swedish Open in Bastad (d. Fernando Verdasco).
Renzo Olivo has pulled off a major upset…
The 24-year-old Argentine tennis player saved two match points and went on to take down top-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber in the German Open quarterfinals on Friday.
Olivo, currently listed as No. 153 in the ATP World Tour rankings, rallied to win 1-6, 6-0, 7-5, saving two match points in the ninth game of the final set as Kohlschreiber was serving for the match at 5-3.
In Olivo’s first career semifinal, he will have to stop third-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay.
Cuevas of Uruguay defeated Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-6 (7), 6-1 in a repeat of the 2009 semifinal that was won by Mathieu.
Cuevas, who won consecutive titles in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in February, fired 12 aces and won 79 percent of his service points to beat Mathieu.
Stephane Robert of France beat eighth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3.
His semifinal opponent will be seventh-seeded Martin Klizan of Slovakia, who beat Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain 6-4, 6-3.
Pablo Cuevas is one step away from a career first…
The 30-year-old Uruguayan tennis player reached the first grass-court final of his career on Friday after beating Gilles Muller in three sets at the Nottingham Open.
Before this week, Cuevas had only two match wins on grass in his 12-year career. This week he’s won four after beating Muller 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 in the semifinals.
Cuevas is eyeing a sixth career title against Steve Johnson of the United States.
“I’m so happy to reach my first final on grass,” Cuevas said. “I have played every match with more confidence and today I beat an excellent player on grass. Hopefully tomorrow I will enjoy it, too.”
Cuevas has had to rally all week: He was a set down in the second round, saved a match point against Marcos Baghdatis in the quarterfinals, and trailed Muller by a set and 4-4. Muller had three break chances but Cuevas saved them all.
Muller hit 19 aces through the first two sets, but in the tiebreaker, trailing 6-3, he hit a double-fault to concede the second set.
The third set stayed on serve until the fifth game, when Muller was broken for the first time in the match, and smashed his racket in frustration.
If all goes her way, Garbine Muguruza will most certainly get a rematch with Serena Williams in the Wimbledon finals…
The 22-year-old Spanish-Venezuelan professional tennis player, who lost to the World No. 1 tennis player 4-6, 4-6 in last year’s final, is seeded No. 2 for this year’s tournament at the All-England Club.
Muguruza, who bested Williams at the French Open to win the first Grand Slam title of her career, cannot face Serena, seeded No.1, until the final at Wimbledon, since they’re both in separate halves of the draw.
Seedings were based on the current world rankings but rearranged to reflect players’ grass-court achievements.
Muguruza is the highest-seeded Hispanic player on the women’s and men’s side. She’s followed by Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro at No. 13 and Caroline Garcia, who recently won her first-ever title on grass at the Mallorca Open, at No. 31.
Spain’s David Ferrer is the highest-seeded player on the men’s side at No. 13. He’s followed by Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut at No. 14, Spain’s Feliciano Lopez at No. 22 and Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas at No. 29.
Play at the third Grand Slam of the year starts Monday.
GENTLEMEN’S SINGLES
1 DJOKOVIC, Novak (SRB)
2 MURRAY, Andy (GBR)
3 FEDERER, Roger (SUI)
4 WAWRINKA, Stan (SUI)
5 NISHIKORI, Kei (JPN)
6 RAONIC, Milos (CAN)
7 GASQUET, Richard (FRA)
8 THIEM, Dominic (AUT)
9 CILIC, Marin (CRO)
10 BERDYCH, Tomas (CZE)
11 GOFFIN, David (BEL)
12 TSONGA, Jo-Wilfried (FRA)
13 FERRER, David (ESP)
14 BAUTISTA AGUT, Roberto (ESP)
15 KYRGIOS, Nick (AUS)
16 SIMON, Gilles (FRA)
17 MONFILS, Gael (FRA)
18 ISNER, John (USA)
19 TOMIC, Bernard (AUS)
20 ANDERSON, Kevin (RSA)
21 KOHLSCHREIBER, Philipp (GER)
22 LOPEZ, Feliciano (ESP)
23 KARLOVIC, Ivo (CRO)
24 ZVEREV, Alexander (GER)
25 TROICKI, Viktor (SRB)
26 PAIRE, Benoit (FRA)
27 SOCK, Jack (USA)
28 QUERREY, Sam (USA)
29 CUEVAS, Pablo (URU)
30 DOLGOPOLOV, Alexandr (UKR)
31 SOUSA, Joao (POR)
32 POUILLE, Lucas (FRA)
LADIES’ SINGLES
1 WILLIAMS, Serena (USA)
2 MUGURUZA, Garbine (ESP)
3 RADWANSKA, Agnieszka (POL)
4 KERBER, Angelique (GER)
5 HALEP, Simona (ROU)
6 AZARENKA, Victoria (BLR)
7 VINCI, Roberta (ITA)
8 BENCIC, Belinda (SUI)
9 WILLIAMS, Venus (USA)
10 KEYS, Madison (USA)
11 KVITOVA, Petra (CZE)
12 BACSINSZKY, Timea (SUI)
13 SUAREZ NAVARRO, Carla (ESP)
14 KUZNETSOVA, Svetlana (RUS)
15 STOSUR, Samantha (AUS)
16 PLISKOVA, Karolina (CZE)
17 KONTA, Johanna (GBR)
18 SVITOLINA, Elina (UKR)
19 STEPHENS, Sloane (USA)
20 CIBULKOVA, Dominika (SVK)
21 ERRANI, Sara (ITA)
22 PAVLYUCHENKOVA, Anastasia (RUS)
23 JANKOVIC, Jelena (SRB)
24 IVANOVIC, Ana (SRB)
25 STRYCOVA, Barbora (CZE)
26 BEGU, Irina-Camelia (ROU)
27 BERTENS, Kiki (NED)
28 VANDEWEGHE, Coco (USA)
29 SAFAROVA, Lucie (CZE)
30 KASATKINA, Daria (RUS)
31 GARCIA, Caroline (FRA)
32 MLADENOVIC, Kristina (FRA)
Nicolas Almagro is one win away from ending a four year drought…
The 30-year-old Spanish tennis player and clay-court specialist beat second-seeded Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 7-5 at the Estoril Open on Saturday to reach his second final of the season.
Almagro will face fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, who upset third-seeded Benoit Paire of France 6-3, 6-3 in the other semifinal at the clay-court tournament.
The 71st-ranked Almagro saved the only two break points he conceded in the entire match and served seven aces to reach his second final after losing to Dominic Thiem in Argentina in February.
Almagro has 12 career ATP titles, all on clay. He hasn’t won a tournament in four years.
The eighth-seeded Carreno Busta, 24, upset top-seeded Gilles Simon in Friday’s quarterfinals.
The 50th-ranked Spaniard played in his first final at the Brazil Open in February, losing to Pablo Cuevas.
Pablo Cuevas has claimed his first tournament win of 2016…
The 30-year-old Uruguayan tennis player claimed his fourth ATP singles title with a 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory over Argentina’s Guido Pella in the final of the Rio Open on Sunday.
The match was delayed for more than three hours by a torrential downpour with the first set tied at 3-3.
Cuevas, who defeated Rafael Nadal in the semifinals, came out of the break fresher than Pella, a first-time ATP Tour finalist.
The Rio Open was plagued by rain all week and the men’s final was played in a sparsely filled center-court stadium.
Cuevas, ranked No. 27 in the world, has won all for of his titles on clay. His other titles were in Sao Paulo (2015), and Umag (2014) and Bastad (2014).
Pablo Cuevas has pulled off a big upset…
The 29-year-old Uruguayan tennis player upset third-seeded Bernard Tomic 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals of the Valencia Open.
Cuevas landed just 38 percent of his first serves in the first set but saved six of the seven break points he faced in the second and then earned the only break in the decider to clinch the win in 1 hour, 48 minutes.
Vasek Pospisil also reached the quarterfinals by beating Britain’s Aljaz Bedene 6-3, 6-4, while American Steve Johnson set up a second-round meeting with second-seeded Feliciano Lopez by ousting Martin Klizan 6-3, 6-4.