The Argentine tennis player Federico Coria advanced this Wednesday to the quarterfinals of the ATP 250 in Lyon after achieving an excellent victory over the second favorite for the title, the Spanish Pablo Carreño Busta, by 7-5 and 6-3.
Coria, born in Rosario and ranked 59th in the ATP world ranking, took an hour and a half to beat Carreño Busta (17) in the best win of his career.
El Mago’s brother completed a great first set, in which he did not grant any break chances and in which he took advantage of the second chance he had to break the Spaniard’s serve and thus secure the set. In the second, Carreño Busta took a quick lead by breaking the Argentine’s serve and went on to take a 3-1 lead. However, Coria soon recovered and won five games in a row, with two breaks, to win the match and advance to the quarterfinals.
The 30-year-old from Rosario had made his debut in Lyon with a tight win in three sets over the German Daniel Altmaier (54). Now, after the resounding victory over Carreño Busta, he will take on his next match against the Slovakian Alex Molcan (47), who surprised and beat Russian Karen Khachanov (24) 6-2, 7-6 (4).
Coria never faced Molcan on the professional circuit, although they did play twice in challengers in 2021 with celebrations for Rosario in the final in Prostejov (Czech Republic) and in the round of 32 in Oeiras (Portugal).
The other Argentine who continues in the French tournament is the ascendant Sebastián Báez, champion this year in the Portuguese ATP in Estoril. Báez (38) successively beat his compatriot Tomás Martín Etcheverry (90) and the German Oscar Otte (60), and this Thursday he will take on a difficult challenge in the quarterfinals against the top favorite for the title, the British Cameron Norrie (11).
The Lyon ATP, one of the events prior to Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam of the year to be played from Sunday in Paris, will distribute prizes of 597,900 euros and celebrates its fifth edition. The previous champions were the French Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2017) and Benoit Paire (2019), the Austrian Dominic Thiem (2018) and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (2021).
The qualifying of Roland Garros
Argentine tennis players Juan Ignacio Londero, Camilo Ugo Carabelli and Santiago Rodríguez Taverna qualified this Wednesday for the third and final round of qualifying to enter the main draw of Roland Garros, while Thiago Tirante, Facundo Mena and Juan Manuel Cerúndolo were eliminated.
Londero, ranked 141 in the ATP ranking, beat Swiss Dominic Stricker (177) 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 in two hours and five minutes of play. In the last qualifying round, the “Topo” will play Croatian Borna Gojo (222).
Camilo Ugo Carabelli (154) passed almost without playing as his rival, the American Ernesto Escobedo (135), retired when the Argentine was in front 4-1 in the first set. In the next round he will face the winner of the match between the Spanish Fernando Verdasco (109) and the Swiss Alexander Ritschard (204).
Meanwhile, Rodríguez Taverna, 203 in the ranking, beat Kazakh Timofey Skatov (191) 7-5, 6-1 after an hour and a half, and was one step away from playing his first Grand Slam, something that will be finalized if he wins his next match against the Bulgarian Dimitar Kuzmanov (193). The 22-year-old Argentine had beaten the Slovakian Filip Horansky (189) in the initial round of the “qualy” and ratified his very good season, which began in January with winning the title in the Challenger played at Tigre .
For his part, Tirante from La Plata (192) was left without a chance to play the French Grand Slam after losing to Italian Alessandro Giannessi (173) 7-5 and 6-2, as did Mena (167), who lost to the Croatian Gojo – Londero’s next rival – 6-3 and 6-3. Juan Manuel Cerúndolo (132), for his part, could not defeat the German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe (210) 7-6 (7) and 6-3 in almost two hours of play and was eliminated in the second round.
The other Argentines who are still in the race and will play their matches later to try to advance to the third round are Marco Trungelliti, Pedro Cachín and Juan Pablo Ficovich.