Last year’s Estoril Open champion Casper Ruud was favored to go all the way in Estoril once more, but he was surprisingly stopped in the semi-final.
Pedro Martinez hasn’t achieved a significant result for a long time, but he’s doing really well this week in Estoril. The Spaniard came out of nowhere to produce some smashing tennis this week and make his way to the semi-final.
What’s especially surprising about his match in that semi-final is that he completely outplayed Ruud, who won the ATP 250 event last year. Not only did he win it last year, but he was actually playing really well this week and, more broadly, this year.
This might be his worst loss this year, and it’s just very surprising. The first set was rather interesting because Ruud wasted some early break points only to get broken a bit after that.
That’s all Martinez really needed as he kept his serve easily for the rest of the first set and won it 6-4. The second set was hugely competitive, as both players struggled at times.
Ruud started poorly, having to save break points early, but then a few games later he wasted some chances as well. He would then break for the 5-3 lead, then get broken for the 5-4 lead and the break once more to win the second set.
He did much better on his second serve and simply played the big rallies better. That’s all it took, but things wouldn’t go as well in the third set. He dropped his serve early and then lost his serve once more to fall behind 1-4, when he requested an off-court medical time-out.
Still, it didn’t matter much as Martinez easily won the match 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to reach the final of the tournament. For Ruud, the medical time-out is especially worrying, as he certainly doesn’t want to deal with an injury ahead of the Monte-Carlo Masters.
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