Guido Pella saved the clothes of Argentine tennis at Wimbledon. When it seemed that his career was exhausted and his family life completed the combo to start thinking about retirement, the Bahian player played the last few cartridges, used his protected ranking well, regained confidence with some wins and good performances, and at Wimbledon he reaped the fruits, to become the only albiceleste tennis player in the third round of the British Open.
With a lot of effort and overcoming complicated situations throughout the game, Pella prevailed 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) and 7-5 against Frenchman Harold Mayot to indulge himself at 33 years of age and look with confidence to the next round: the Russian Roman Safiullin, 25 years old and 92 in the ATP ranking, is not a cuckoo for a third round of Wimbledon. The Poldosk-born player has just eliminated Frenchman Corentin Moutet in three sets, but he does not appear inaccessible to the confident Pella.
Unlike what happened in the first round against the Croatian Borna Coric, Pella started without rhythm and with many errors. That’s why he went fast in the initial set and it seemed that everything could be over soon. However, Mayot showed some irregularity that the Argentine took advantage of to match in sets. And then, in the decisive moments, Pella showed mettle, like when he won the third set tie-break after blowing his serve at 6-5 or in the fourth set, when he broke the Frenchman’s serve and leveled the score when it seemed that everything went to the fifth set.
With the victory, Pella already guaranteed 90 points and climbed 87 positions in the ranking, to close to 220th place. And an eventual victory in the third round would put him close to the top 150, something unthinkable two months ago, when he felt that the retirement was coming.
In addition, Pella thus saved the honor of Argentine tennis, which was left without the other representatives that remained in the race. It is that Francisco Cerúndolo, Tomás Martín Etcheverry and Nadia Podoroska were eliminated in their respective second round matches.
Cerúndolo, number one in Argentina and 19th in the world ranking, could do little against the Czech Jiri Lehecka, who showed his best arguments on the London grass and won 6-2, 6-2 and 6-2 in less than one hour and half. Cerúndolo, who had just celebrated the title in Eastbourne, had no chance and said goodbye early to a tournament that seemed like it could give him several joys.
It was not a good day for Etcheverry either, who could not control the variants of the Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka. The player from La Plata, ranked 32nd in the world ranking, lost to the winner of three Grand Slams 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 and 6-2 after two hours and 34 minutes of play in a match played in pitch number 3 of the All England Club, in London.
Etcheverry had beaten the Spanish Bernabé Zapata Miralles (53) in the initial round, but he did not repeat that level against a tennis player of a higher hierarchy like the Swiss. The man from La Plata, who had reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, in the best performance of his career, remained in the match until the third set, when he suffered a break to be down 2/0 and could not recover, since from from that moment the dominance of the Swiss was accentuated.
Wawrinka will play his next match against Serbian Novak Djokovic (2), winner of 23 Grand Slam tournaments, including the two that were played this year in Australia and Roland Garros, and seven-time Wimbledon champion, the last four in a row.
In the women’s draw, Nadia Podoroska (80) from Rosario, after her debut with a win over the Czech Tereza Martincova (115), could not hold her own and fell unmitigatedly to the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka (20) 6-3, 6 -0 in one hour and 23 minutes. The former world number one will play her next match against the Russian Daria Kasatkina (10), who beat the British Jodie Burrage (108) 6-0, 6-2.
2023-07-06 18:03:40
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