The unusual regulatory change that harmed Sebastián Báez in the Challenger in Turin and prevented him from being seeded at Roland Garros

The Buenos Aires tennis player Sebastian Baez stayed eliminated from the Turin Challenger, in Italy, after losing this Saturday in the semifinals with the local Federico Gaio by 7-5 and 6-3, in a curious context and with an unexpected consequence personally for the Roland Garros Open, which will begin this Monday with the classification.

Báez, ranked 40th in the ATP world ranking and top seed for the title in Turin, fell after an hour and 10 minutes of play in a match in which he was handicapped by an unusual surface change due to the rainy storm that hits Italian soil and forced the postponement of the day on Friday, in a country in a state of alarm due to the passage of Cyclone Minerva.

The decisive point and the celebration of Gaio

In this context, the tournament that distributes 200,000 euros in prizes and It had been developing on brick dust and in the open air He was transferred in this instance to another club to finish playing… under roof and on concrete surface. Two different floors in the same contest in the same week, given the need to finish the tournament before the players travel to France.

Báez, 22, ended up being harmed against an opponent whose game is more suited to hard courts and because if he won the title, his new ranking (35) would allow him to be seeded at Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam of the year that will be played in Paris and whose main draw that it will integrate will begin on May 28.

How does this situation change for Báez with a view to the Grand Slam? Very simple: by not being able to reach the tournament as one of the 32 seeded players, in the draw one of the best entry players could have touched him, something that he could have avoided being seeded.

The triumph of the quarterfinals on brick dust

His rival, the Italian Gaio, will play the final of the Turin tournament against the German Dominik Koepfer (149th), who won the other semifinal against the Colombian Daniel Elahí Galán (94th) 6-4, 6-2.

Facundo Diaz Acosta became champion of the Oeiras Challenger, in Portugal, after winning this Saturday in the final 6-4, 6-3 over the Australian Aleksandar Vukic, champion in Busan last week. Ranked 134th in the ATP world ranking, the Argentine won a second Challenger title in 2023, after the one he won on April 30 when he lifted the trophy in Savannah, in the United States. The contest was played on brick dust and distributed a total of 73,000 euros in prizes.

The lefty, 22 years old, achieved the third Challenger of his career, since he had also won the one in Coquimbo, in Chile, last year, although this time after having completed a fantastic week in Oeiras with a string of victories over the Americans Emilio Nava (171st), Ulises Blanch (354th) and Nicolás Moreno de Alboran (207th), plus the Moldovan Radu Albot (112th) and in the final the aforementioned Vukic.

Argentine tennis players have won seven Challenger tournaments this year, the category that is next in importance to the ATP: Juan Manuel Cerúndolo won two titles, both at the facilities of Club Náutico Hacoaj, in the Buenos Aires city of Tigre; Andrea Collarini lifted the trophy played in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil; Federico Coria became champion in Concepción, Chile; Thiago Agustín Tirante won the one in Morelos, in Mexico, and Díaz Acosta won the aforementioned ones in Savannah and Oeiras.

Tomás Etcheverry had a great week in France with successive victories over the Belarusian Ilya Ivashka (73rd), the Frenchman Arthur Cazaux (197th), the Catalan Albert Ramos (72nd) and the German Jan-Lennard Struff (28th) and will be among the top 50 in the ranking since this Monday. But he could not crown her with a title in Bordeaux: the platense he fell in the final of that French Challenger 7-6 (7-3) and 6-4 with the local Ugo Humbert (50th), Seeded fifth in the tournament and number 1 in French tennis since this week when his promotion to 38th place is confirmed.

After the most important success of his career, Etcheverry, 23, he gave up in a decisive match that was very even after 1 hour and 55 minutes against an opponent against whom he had also lost in the first round of Wimbledon, last year and on a hard court. This time, of course, the surface and the category of the competition changed: in Bordeaux they played on brick dust and in a championship known as the 175, which is the highest category of challengers, a status implemented since this year for the second weeks of the Masters 1000 which doubled in length.

Finalist this year in two ATP, the one in Santiago (lost to the Chilean Nicolás Jarry) and the one in Houston (lost to the American Frances Tiafoe), despite the defeat the Argentine confirms his very good season and his evolution.

THE NATION