The Argentines Guido Pella and Facundo Bagnis prevailed in their debut against the Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas and the Brazilian Felipe Meligeni Alves, to advance to the second round of the Miami Tennis Masters 1000, which takes place in parallel between the ATP and the WTA, in the first day of competition of the contest in which Pedro Cachín from Cordoba lost.
Guido Pella, born in Bahía Blanca and relegated to position 581 in the ATP world ranking due to various injuries that prevented him from competing for a long time, recovered from a bad start in the first set and beat Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas (88th ) 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, after 2 hours and 7 minutes of play.
The 32-year-old left-hander from Bahía will face Canadian Denis Shapovalov (30th) in the second round of the US tournament, excepted from participating in the first round.
For his part, Facundo Bagnis, ranked 100th in the ranking, defeated the Brazilian Felipe Meligeni Alves (164), coming from the previous classification of the contest, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, after 1 hour and 41 minutes of confrontation, to achieve his first victory in the Masters 1000 in Miami.
The tennis player from Armstrong, Santa Fe, 33 years ago, will play his next match against the top seed for the title, the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz (1st), who will enter directly into the second round.
The Cordovan Pedro Cachín (63rd) was defeated by the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (74th), who beat him 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), after 1 hour and 47 minutes of confrontation.
The tournament will feature five other Argentines: Francisco Cerúndolo, Sebastián Báez and Diego Schwartzman, the three excepted from the initial round, plus Federico Coria and Tomás Martín Etcheverry, who are scheduled to play their initial round matches on Thursday.
The eldest of the Cerúndolo brothers and Argentine number one since his 31st position in the world ranking, will begin his participation against the winner of the cross between the Spanish Jaume Munar (66th) and the American Aleksandar Kovacevic (102nd), a tennis player who emerged from the classification.
For Cerúndolo, 24, Miami is a very important tournament since he will defend the points he scored last year when he climbed to the semifinals in a great performance.
Báez (33rd), for his part, also exempted from the initial round, will play against the winner of the match between the American Marcos Girón (71st) and the Chilean Cristian Garín (82nd), coming from the “qualy”.
The other one who will skip the initial round, Schwartzman (38th), will face the British Kyle Edmund (544th) or the Chinese Yibing Wu (64th).
For his part, Tomás Martín Etcheverry (73rd) from La Plata will debut against Russian Pavel Katov (117th), who emerged from the “qualification” and, if he passes, he will have to face Russian Karen Khachanov (16th), while Coria (67th) from Rosario will play against the rising Czech Jiri Lehecka (44th) and, if he beats him, he will play in the second round of the tournament against the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (21st).
The Miami Masters 1000, on a cement surface and with prizes of $10,156,105, will take place in its new venue since 2019, the Hard Rock Stadium.
