Portuguese tennis player Francisco Cabral and Austrian Lucas Miedler scored a significant upset at the Paris Masters 1000, defeating fourth seeds and Grand Slam champions Marcel Granollers and Horacio Ceballos to advance to the quarterfinals.
The unseeded duo beat the Spanish-Argentine pair 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 21 minutes.
Granollers, ranked 6th globally, and Ceballos, 5th, are a formidable team, having won both the French Open and U.S. Open this year. They had received a first-round bye in Paris.
Cabral, ranked 23rd in the world, and Miedler, 35th, considered this a career-defining victory for Cabral.
This marks their second Masters 1000 quarterfinal appearance this season.
The pair also recently reached the final of the Vienna tournament last Sunday.
The win ensures Cabral will rise to at least 21st in the ATP doubles rankings. This achievement solidifies his status as Portugal’s highest-ranked male doubles player ever, surpassing João Sousa’s previous best of 26th.
Their next opponents will be Australian John Peers, a former world No. 2, and American JJ Tracy.
In their previous match, Cabral and Miedler had defeated fellow Portuguese Nuno Borges and Czech Tomas Machac.