Buenos Aires: Hobbling Diego Schwartzman wins 3-hour 41-minute thriller!
Diego Schwartzman made it into the round of the last four in Buenos Aires thanks to a fighting will.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Feb 15, 2020, 05:25 pm
The top-placed Argentinian beat Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay 5: 7, 7: 6 (11) and 7: 5. Schwartzman fended off four match balls in the tiebreak of the second set - at 5: 6, 8: 9, 9:10 and 10:11. In the third set, he was initially unable to bring a 4: 1 lead to the finish and could not use a match point in 5: 4. To make matters worse, Schwartzman injured himself on the groin during this phase of the game and was only able to move to a limited extent at the end.
But Cuevas made no use of it. He fended off a match ball at 5: 6 and 3:40 p.m., made a double mistake at the second - after 3 hours and 41 minutes of play in front of frenetic Argentinian fans.
Bitter: Whether Schwartzman can compete in the semi-finals seems unclear, as he explained in the on-court interview. Some time later, he announced via Twitter that he had been examined and wanted to decide on Saturday morning.
Schwartzman had reached the final at his home game last year, but lost to Marco Cecchinato there.
Semi-final opponent Sousa: "I felt like Isner"
Schwartzman's opponent in the semifinals is Pedro Sousa from Portugal, who prevailed in an almost equally abstruse game with 7: 6 (5), 6: 4 against Thiago Monteiro. Sousa seemed to have calf problems throughout the match and had to be treated - but hit the ball extraordinarily well and reached his first semi-final on the ATP tour at the slim age of 31.
Sousa had only entered the peloton as Lucky Loser.
The other semifinals at the $ 696,280 event in Argentina will be played by Casper Ruud and Juan Ignacio Londero.