It was the stellar duel of the day. The first clash between two Chileans in the Dove Men + Care Challenger in Santiago 3 brought together Tomás Barrios (154 °) and Diego Fernández (896 °) in the round of 16 of the contest. On the one hand, the country’s number two arrived with the confidence of having passed the debut, while the young guest, 21, did so after beating the qualy Brazilian Rafael Matos and advance for the first time in his career to the second round of a contest of these characteristics.
Despite the promise of Fernández’s career, Barrios surpassed him in all aspects and won 6-0 and 6-1, in one hour and four minutes into the game. The keys to the duel went mainly through the high effectiveness of points that the chillanejo won with his first serve (81%), while his rival could barely win 40%. In fact, the only game he got was by a break in the penultimate game of the meeting, which he himself celebrated with everything while the public that came to the Palestinian Club cheered him on.
The difference in ball speed was also a factor, since Guillermo Gómez’s pupil marked differences with acceleration. That allowed him to break seven times in the entire match and establish enormous distances in terms of ranking and play. Anyway, and beyond the lapidary that turned out to be the defeat, Fernández will reap an advance of more than 100 positions.
Meanwhile, Barrios secured a place among the 150 best in the world for the first time in his career, since with his victory he appears temporarily in box 148. And, if this Friday he defeats the Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas Patiño-Samudio (127 °), he will remain in position 145. In the same way, either of the two locations will be the best of his career.
“I played at a very high level, much better than last round and last week. I think I played at the level of the challengers I played in Europe and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s game (Friday) “Said the winner of the meeting, who referred to Varillas, recent champion of the Santiago 2 Challenger: “With Juampi we know each other a lot, we get along well. We have played very entertaining, very long games and he has beaten me several times. It is going to be a very tough game, for something he won here last week ”.
