Horacio Zeballos and Marcel Granollers beat the Croatians Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic yesterday by 6-4 and 7-6 (7-4) on the second round of the Green Group and were one step away from advancing to the semifinals of the doubles table of the ATP Finals, which takes place in Turin.
The player from Mar del Plata, fifth in the world doubles ranking, and the Catalan, sixth, used one hour and 42 minutes to defeat the Balkan duo, which is the number one on the planet.
Zeballos and Granollers had debuted last Sunday with a victory over Croatian Ivan Dodig and Slovak Filip Polasek by 4-6, 7-6 (12-10) and 10-6 and, with this new victory, they are the leaders of their zone. In this way, they will advance to the semifinals (the two best couples pass) if later Dodig and Polasek prevail in the other match of the group against the pair made up of the German Kevin Krawietz and the Romanian Horia Tecau.
Pavic and Mektic had overtaken Krawietz and Tecau on Sunday, so that the Zeballos – Granollers duo could finalize their pass before the last date scheduled for tomorrow.
Kyrgios, controversial
True to his style, Nick Kyrgios made a series of statements that aroused controversy in the tennis world: Roland Garros and The Big Three (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic).
“Roland Garros should remove it from the calendar. It’s the biggest Grand Slam trash I’ve ever seen. I love Wimbledon. Even people who don’t follow tennis know about that tournament. It is the most prestigious, “said the Australian on the No Boundaries podcast.
When referring to the Big Three, Kyrgios chose Roger over Novak and Rafa. “For me, Federer is the Michael Jordan of tennis because of what he achieved through the sport with the fans and children. Of the three, I think the children admire Federer the most. And globally, he is the one that has done the most to change the sport. His retirement will hurt tennis, sponsors and so on. Without Federer, there would be no Djokovic and Nadal because they were chasing him, “he said.
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