For the second round in succession, Nicolas Almagro defeated a home favourite to move into the quarter finals of the Millennium Estoril Open. On this occasion, Almagro defeated the Portuguese number one and tournament fourth seed, Joao Sousa, 4-6 6-1 6-2 so ending hopes of a local winner.
In front of a packed crowd in the Estadio Millennium, and an atmosphere reminiscent of Davis Cup, Sousa made the perfect start, breaking Almagro for a 2-1 lead. Sousa managed to close out the set 6-4, despite facing break points while serving for the set. This was the first set earned in four matches in the singles by a Portuguese player; unfortunately it would also be the last.
Almagro broke at the start of the second set and again in the sixth game to win the set 6-1. The Spaniard, now ranked 71 in the world, would not himself face another break point after being broken in the first set. At the start of the third set, Sousa went over on his ankle to go down three break points, and after saving two of them he double faulted on the third. The match quickly went away from the Portuguese, despite vocal backing from the local crowd. Almagro won all 11 first serve points in the third set and combined with unforced errors from Sousa’s racquet, ran out a comfortable 4-6 6-1 6-2 winner. In the quarter finals, Almagro goes on to face the winner of Leonardo Mayer and Paolo Lorenzi, who play later on Thursday.
In the day’s early match, Pablo Carreno Busta defeated Taro Daniel of Japan 6-4 7-5. Aged 24, Carreno Busta is Spain’s youngest player in the ATP top 100 and very much a clay court specialist. Daniel, 23, who was looking for his first win in seven against the Spaniard, was left rueing the tenth game in each set. Serving at 4-5 in the first set, Daniel made two forehand unforced errors to lose the set. In the second set, Daniel was up a break and served for the set at 5-4. Despite holding 2 set points at 40-15, the wheels would come off remarkably quickly for Daniel. He would go on to lose 12 of the last 14 points and lose both the set and the match.
Carreno Busta will face the winner of the first night match here, a match that pits two Frenchmen together, top seed Gilles Simon and Paul-Henri Mathieu, for a place in the quarter finals.
