The Argentine Horacio Zeballos, accompanied by the Spanish Marcel Granollers, will have to wait for a new opportunity to play his third Grand Slam final, since he lost this Thursday in the doubles semifinals at the Australian Open. The Spanish-Argentine duo fell to local idols Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios in the contest that takes place in Melbourne
Zeballos, a 36-year-old from Mar del Plata, and Granollers, a 35-year-old Spaniard, lost 7-6 (7-4) and 6-4 to Kokkinakis-Kyrgios in a very even duel that lasted one hour and 47 minutes. In the opening set, both pairs were very solid on their respective serves, allowing no break chances for their rivals. Faced with so much parity, a couple of details in the tie break were enough for the oceanic ones to keep the partial and begin to gestate the victory.
In the second set, the break suffered at the start meant that Zeballos and Granollers had to run from behind on the scoreboard. And although they recovered from the deficit in the seventh game and came back from 4-1 to draw 4-4, the Aussies did not waste the next opportunity they had and broke again to claim the victory.
With this victory, Kyrgios and Kokkinakis will play the final of the tournament against their compatriots Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell, who defeated the American Rajeev Ram and the British Joe Salisbury 6-3, 7-6 (11-9). For Zeballos and Granollers, the third Grand Slam final could not take place, after having reached the definition at the US Open 2019 and Wimbledon last year.
In the men’s singles table, the semifinals will be played by the Spanish Rafael Nadal (5th in the ATP world ranking) against the Italian Mareco Berrettini (6th) after midnight and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (4th) against the Russian Daniil Medvedev (2nd) from 6:30 on Friday.
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