Cervantes, Pella Qualify For Semis

Inigo Cervantes and Guido Pella continued their strong run of form less than a week after squaring off for the Montevideo title.

Cervantes qualified for the semi-finals from Group A at the ATP Challenger Tour Finals, while Pella advanced to the last four from Group B. The top seeded Argentine downed the Spaniard for his fourth title of the year Sunday in Montevideo.

Cervantes opened proceedings on Thursday in Sao Paulo with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Paolo Lorenzi. The 25 year old, who recently entered the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings for the first time, upset top seed Lorenzi in one hour and 36 minutes. He fired five aces, converting on all four break points, while saving six of seven faced. It was his 47th match win of the season – tied for the fifth most in a single season in ATP Challenger Tour history.

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“You have to believe that you can win every match because if you don’t enter the court with positive thoughts, it gets hard,” said Cervantes. “I felt much better today than yesterday. The first match is always more complicated. I served better today, felt a little bit more calm during the whole match.

“Tomorrow it’s a double edged-sword. It’s a dangerous match because he has nothing to lose tomorrow. I have to try to play my game and I would like to reach the semis with three victories.”

At 2-0 in Group A, Cervantes will be joined by either Lorenzi or Daniel Munoz-de la Nava in the semis. World No. 87 Munoz-de la Nava moved to 1-1 with a 7-6(3), 6-1 win over Farrukh Dustov in the first match of the day. Seventh seed Dustov is eliminated from semi-final contention, falling to 0-2 in round robin play.

Lorenzi is set to battle Munoz-de la Nava in a winner take all clash. It will be the seventh encounter between the two 33 year olds. Lorenzi leads the FedEx ATP Head2Head series 5-1, with wins in qualifying at Roland Garros 2009 and ATP World Tour Masters 1000 in Miami two years later. He won their lone meeting in 2015 in the Cortina Challenger semi-finals.

“The opponent was completely different from the first match,” Munoz-de la Nava said. “Dustov is a hard court player, with a great serve and quick points. Inigo serves really well, but we played long points.

“Everytime I play Paolo the matches are long and tough. He has won most of them, but I’m going to try to play well.”

Group B Down To The Wire
Pella stopped eighth seeded wild card and local favourite Guilherme Clezar 6-4, 6-3 in one hour and 31 minutes to move to 2-0 in Group B. The Argentine saved all five break points faced.

Pella improved to 45-13 on the year, extending his win streak to seven straight.

“I’m really happy,” Pella said. “That was the goal, winning the first two matches. I had some help from Albot. Tomorrow I’m going to give it all to advance without losing a match. Marco has nothing to lose, so it won’t be easy

“This was my best match here. He played a great first set, but I think I played extremely well too. It was really tough, it always is against Guilherme, because he is good on both wings and also serves great.”

A spot in the semi-finals will be on the line when Radu Albot faces Clezar on Friday. Sixth seed Albot rallied past Marco Cecchinato 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, overcoming eight aces from the Italian. Cecchinato is eliminated with the loss.

“I played him before,” said Albot, who became the first Moldovan to enter the Top 100 earlier this year. “He’s also very good on clay, but he has not played that many tournaments in the last few weeks. Maybe he’s not in his best moment right now as I am. But I just kept fighting and pushing the ball in the court

“I never played against Clezar. But he’s playing home, playing well. I saw his match against Cecchinato. Very aggressive player with good hands. Usually we say ‘when you play home, the balls help you, you know?’. So I hope the balls will not help him tomorrow.”