Chile’s Christian Garin saved five match points in his 3-6 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (8-6) win over France’s Jeremy Chardy in a marathon match after three hours and 5 minutes in the longest match in this tournament’s history to advance to his second quarter final at the Fayez Sarofim & Co US Men’s Clay Court Championships in Houston, an ATP 250 tournament. The match featured 32 match points.
After two trades of break Garin dropped his serve for the third time to trail 3-5 in the third set. The Chilean player saved four match points before breaking back to draw level to 5-5.
Chardy earned his fifth match point at 7-6 in the tie-break, but Chardy saved it and sealed the win on his second match point.
The South American player, who reached his first final at the Brazil Open last February, will take on Switzerland’s Henri Laaksonen, who beat US Ryan Harrison 7-5 6-4.
Marcel Granollers, who won the Houston tournament in 2008, converted all his five break points to cruise past Bernard Tomic 6-2 6-1 in just 47 minutes setting up a quarter final match against Norway’s Casper Ruud, who came back from one set down to beat Reilly Opelka 4-6 6-2 6-4 after converting his only two break points.
