Argentine tennis players Francisco Cerúndolo y Sebastian Baez, two of the best in their country and who currently occupy places 22 and 30 in the ATP ranking, will meet this Saturday in one of the semifinals of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro, after having won their respective matches this Friday. The Buenos Aires native joined them at the last minute. Mariano Navone (113°), who extended his dream week in Rio by surpassing the local promise Joao Fonseca (650°).
Cerúndolo won 3-6, 6-4 and 6-4 over Serbian Dusan Lajovic in a match lasting two hours and 23 minutes, while Báez defeated Brazilian Thiago Monteiro 6-4, 1-6 and 6-2 in two hours and 13 minutes.
Cerúndolo, the fourth seed in Rio de Janeiro, the only ATP 500 tournament in South America, achieved an important comeback after losing the first set 3-6 after the Serbian broke his serve twice.
The 25-year-old Buenos Aires player became the first semi-finalist in the tenth edition of the Rio Open.
It is the second time that he has reached this stage, since in 2022 he was eliminated in the semifinals by his compatriot Diego Schwartzman, who ended up losing the title that year to the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz.
Before getting rid of the Serbian in the quarterfinals, Cerúndolo eliminated the Spanish Albert Ramos in the round of 16 by a resounding 6-2 and 6-1 and in the first round he also eliminated the Argentine Francisco Comesaña by 6-1, 1-6 and 6-2 .
On Saturday he will try to reach his fifth final on the ATP circuit, after having won the titles in Bastad 2022 and in Eastbourne in 2023.
His rival will be Báez, who, before eliminating Monteiro in the quarterfinals, beat his compatriot Facundo Díaz Acosta, who was champion of the Buenos Aires Open last Sunday, in the round of 16, 7-6, 6-3.
Báez, who had to overcome the pressure of the Brazilian fans, was much superior to Monteiro in the first round; He suffered a downturn in the second, but managed to recover in the third by breaking the home team’s serve twice in a row.
The story of Navone, born in the Buenos Aires city of 9 de Julio 22 years ago, is too particular. Because in this Rio tournament he won his first two matches in an ATP, against Federico Coria from Rosario (85) and German Yannick Hanfmann (56). This Friday, he made his way even further by surpassing Fonseca, who had beaten him the only time they met, in the 2022 Sao Leopoldo Challenger.
Despite the fact that, obviously, the public rallied to the local representative. Even more so when he won the first set 2-6, but Navone’s nerves of steel allowed him to overcome the result with a double 6-3.
The next step will not be easy for the Buenos Aires native, since he will face the current champion, the British Cameron Norrie (23), who beat another local like Thiago Seyboth Wild (82) by 6-1, 3-6 and 6-2.
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