Sebastián Báez
debuted his status as number one in Argentine tennis with a hard-fought celebration in his debut at the
ATP 250 in Estoril
, one of the events that opened the European brick dust tour on Monday, which will end at Roland Garros.
In an almost perfect day for the albiceleste rackets -two wins and one loss-, the man from Buenos Aires, 32nd in the world and champion of the last edition, won 7-5, 7-6 (7-3) against the Moldovan
Radu Albot
, 106th in the ranking, and reached the round of 16.
Pedro Cachín
, 67th, also advanced to the second round, beating Taiwanese
Chun Hsin Tseng
6-4, 6-4 , 145th.
Meanwhile,
Diego Schwartzman
, 36th, lost 6-3 and 7-6 (10-8) with the Italian
Marco Cecchinato
, 96th, and extended his weak moment.
Báez, 22, found himself with many complications to take the first step towards defending his title, not only because of the good game that his rival played, but also because of some discomfort he suffered in his left leg.
Likewise, he knew how to carry out a difficult match, in which he served with the score 2-5 against in the second set and ended up closing in two hours and 13 minutes.
"The first game back on the slow pitches is always tough," Sebas said.
"Albot was close. I know him, he is an experienced player... To take the win I had to be strong in the difficult moments, because there is pressure for me as the defending champion, of course."
The man born in San Martín, who comes from losing in the second round in Miami, became the best ranked Argentine on Monday, climbing to 32nd place in the ranking and surpassing Francisco
Cerúndolo
.
The porteño fell to 33rd after saying goodbye in the quarterfinals in the Florida tournament and not being able to match his performance last year (the semis).
Báez was crowned just over twelve months ago in Estoril by beating the American
Frances Tiafoe
in the final , to add his first trophy in the most important circuit of men's tennis.
At the beginning of February, in
Córdoba
, she got the second by winning the decisive duel against
Federico Coria
.
The next opponent of the Buenos Aires player, fifth seeded, will be
Cachín
.
The 27-year-old from Cordoba passed the first round of the Portuguese tournament with much more comfort, with a solid victory against Tseng, in a match that lasted one hour and 36 minutes.
The native of Bell Ville -who in his time at the US cement Masters 1000 celebrated his first victory in that category (in
Indian Wells
)- played a challenger on brick dust last week in Girona (lost in the quarterfinals), for which he which came with some filming on this surface.
It will be the first duel between Báez and Cachín.
The winner could meet in the quarterfinals with the Norwegian
Casper Ruud
, top seed, who will first have to face a duel against the Italian
Giulio Zeppieri
or the Portuguese
Joao Sousa
.
New setback for Schwartzman
The bad news of the day was the fall of
Diego Schwartzman
, which extended a worrying losing streak.
El
Peque
, seeded seventh, lost in two sets with Cecchinato and added a new defeat, the fifth in 2023 on clay, a surface on which he used to feel very comfortable -in 2020, he beat Rafael Nadal in Rome and was a semifinalist at
Roland Garros
- but in which he still failed to win this season.
The Italian took possession of the first set without much effort, after 37 minutes.
But the porteño raised the level in the second and, with a lot of grit, gave his rival a fight.
He was broken down twice (1-2 and 5-6), but broke back twice and came close to forcing the third set.
It is that he got to 5-2 in the tie-break of the second, but the European was stronger at the end of the tiebreaker and ended up celebrating.
Schwartzman accumulates only three victories this season (in
Australia
,
Indian Wells
and
Miami
) and nine falls.
He hasn't won two matches in a row since
last year's
US Open .
And on clay, his last celebration was almost nine months ago, in July, in
Bastad
, where he defeated Elias Ymer in his debut and later fell to Pedro Carreño Busta.
Likewise,
Peque
does not give up and continues looking for a way to turn around his bad moment and rediscover his best tennis, the one that led him to occupy the eighth step of the ranking in 2020. Will he be able to take advantage of this tour of slow courts to recover the good feelings?
look also
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Daniil Medvedev continues his streak: he beat Jannik Sinner solidly and celebrated at the Masters 1000 in Miami