The South American tour of clay tournaments suits Sebastián Báez well, who this Friday defeated the Spanish Jaume Munar 6-4 in one hour and 48 minutes to advance to the semifinals of the ATP 250 of Santiago de Chile.
In this way, he defends the 100 points he obtained last year for also reaching the semis, an instance in which he lost to Tomás Etcheverry. In 2022, meanwhile, he fell in the final with Spanish Pedro Martínez, who could be his next rival, and now he will seek to be champion for the first time in the Chilean capital and repeat the title he obtained last week in Rio de Janeiro .
In addition, he is the only tennis player to reach, at least, the quarterfinals in each of the four tournaments on the tour: he was a semifinalist in Córdobawhere he was eliminated by Luciano Darderi, reached the quarterfinals in Buenos Aires (Federico Coria), raised the trophy in Río and now it reaches the last days of competition again.
Báez, 23 years old, makes the most of this stretch of the season. He will play the eleventh semifinal of his career and five of the previous ten were in these latitudes. He has a balance of 7-3 and will go in search of winning the sixth title of his career and extending his winning streak.
As if that were not enough, he is the tennis player who has added the most points in the last month in South America and could enter the Top 20 of the ATP ranking for the first time in his career. Today he appears in 22nd place, five units behind Francisco Cerúndolo, and he will surpass it if he wins his next match against Pedro Martínez or Arthur Fils.
And if he wins the title he will displace Adrian Mannarino from 20th place and could even reach 19th place if the Kazakh Alexander Bublik loses the final of the ATP 500 in Dubai, on Saturday against the Frenchman Ugo Humbert.
Chile Open Schedule
- Sebastian Baez (ARG) defeated Jaume Munar (ESP), 6-4;
- Alejandro Tabilo (CHI) vs. Luciano Darderi (ITA), not before 6 p.m.
- Nicolás Jarry (CHI) vs. Corentin Moutet (FRA), not before 7 p.m.
Pedro Martínez (ESP) vs. Arthur Fils, LIVE
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