Ramos-Vinolas Ousts Former Champion Andujar In Gstaad

Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas reached his first ATP Tour semi-final of the season last week in Båstad. And this week, he has played even better, advancing to the final of the J. Safra Sarasin Swiss Open Gstaad on Saturday with a 7-6(3), 6-4 victory against 2014 champion Pablo Andujar.

Ramos-Vinolas has won all eight of his sets this week, defeating three of the ATP 250 tournament’s seeds. Entering the semi-finals, the lefty had only emerged victorious in one of seven previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against Andujar, but Ramos-Vinolas claimed 43 per cent of his first-serve return points en route to victory in one hour and 54 minutes.

The 31-year-old is into his first tour-level final since Quito last year. Ramos-Vinolas has made six championship matches, with his lone ATP Tour title 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.

Ramos-Vinolas will face Portugual’s Joao Sousa or German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in the final. Sousa and Stebe were knotted at 1-1 in the opening set, with Sousa facing two break points at 15/40, when rain suspended play.

Earlier in the day, Stebe defeated Italian Thomas Fabbiano in the final quarter-final. Prior to this week, Stebe had not won a tour-level match since September 2017 in Davis Cup against Sousa.