We are now so late in the tennis season that even the Challenger Tour is now winding to a close, though there are still a few weeks of events remaining.
Montevideo: Three seeds dropped just a combined twelve games between to progress to the quarter-finals, but another fell in the second round. Guido Pella, Diego Schwartzmann and Horacio Zeballos all eased through with straight set victories. Last week’s Buenos Aires champion Kyle Edmund was upset by the talented Chilean Christian Garin. 6-4 6-4 was enough to topple the Briton, who will now travel back to the UK to prepare for the Davis Cup final against Belgium.
In the first quarter-final, fourth seed Inigo Cervantes of Spain eased through defeating Andrej Martin 6-3 6-3.
Brescia: The final will see no seeded players in action. The last seed standing, Dustin Brown, fell to Mirza Basic 6-4 7-6. Basic will now face former top 100 player Igor Sijsling for the title, after the Dutchman signalled his return to form by defeating Luca Vanni 7-6 7-6.
Final Preview: Basic has done extremely well to reach the final, beating heavy odds and many highly ranked players. Sijsling though, has pedigree and form, and with his big serve, should win this match. Winner Sijsling
Champaign: There comes a point where you just don’t consider wins from Taylor Fritz a surprise any more. Wins over the likes of Dustin Brown, Jared Donaldson and Tim Smyczek will do that. Step up and step down Malek Jaziri. The Tunisian represented Fritz’s highest ranked opponent since Feliciano Lopez in Nottingham. Jaziri was dismissed for the loss of three games 6-1 6-2. Another shock American is also making waves this week. And his name isn’t Noah Rubin. Clay Thompson beat Blaz Rola, and then stunned second seed Austin Krajicek in the quarter-finals. Mackenzie McDonald continued his run by defeating Mitchell Krueger in straight sets, 7-5, 6-1.
Henri Laaksonen defeated Clay Thompson in the first semi-final, 5-7 6-3 7-6.
Yokohama: All matches went to the form book in Japan, as two seeds fell to higher seeds, and the only unseeded players left were knocked out. Taro Daniel and Tatsumo Ito won against unseeded opposition, whilst Matthew Ebden took care of Yuichi Sugita, and Go Soeda knocked out eighth seed Yoshihito Nishioka,
Soeda will face second seed Ebden, and Taro Daniel will battle Tatsumo Ito in the semi-finals.
