Sebastián Báez and Tomás Etcheverry will animate an Argentine semifinal at the ATP 250 in Santiago de Chile

The South American tour of slow courts had started very well with a 100 percent Argentine final at the Mario Alberto Kempes Sports Center: Sebastián Báez and Federico Coria defined the Córdoba title and the former achieved what, to date, is the only title in a compatriot in the circuit.

In the following two weeks, on the other hand, in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro there was not even an Argentine in the semifinals: in the ATP 250 from Buenos Aires Francisco Cerúndolo and Tomás Etcheverry reached the quarterfinals and in the ATP 500 from Rio only Báez reached that instance. The good feelings were recovered this week on the clay of the Santiago Open: is that Báez and Etcheverry won, they went to the semifinals and, also, since they will face each other this Saturday in the first turn, they guaranteed the presence of an Argentine in tomorrow’s final.

The day was opened by Etcheverry who achieved a very good victory -especially due to the forcefulness with which he achieved it- against the Serbian Dusan Lajovic. The player from La Plata won 6-1, 6-2 in a match in which he never had any problems against an opponent he faced for the first time. It will be the first semifinal in the career of a rising tennis player who, from Monday, will be among the best 70 players in the world for at least the first time in his career.

Then the one who won was Báez. Against another Serbian against whom he had not played either, he prevailed with a little more difficulty. Laslo Djere demanded the Buenos Aires player who ended up winning 7-6 (7-4) and 6-4. In the first set they reached the tie-break without breaking serve and in the second a break by Báez managed to break parity to advance in a tournament in which he was a finalist last year.

Báez and Etcheverry, of the same generation – the first is from 2000 and the second, from 1999 – only met once on the circuit. In the first round of the brick dust in Lyon last year, Báez prevailed widely: 6-2 and 6-1. Of course they also played in ITF tournaments (four times in 2019) and there were two wins per side.

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