Portugal, Falcão and Batista eliminated in the Loulé Open qualifying; main frame starts Thursday
LOULE — After days marked by bad weather, the weather conditions gave a truce in mid-afternoon this Wednesday and will allow the second round of the qualification the Loulé Open, an international tournament worth US$25,000 that the Loulé Tennis Club organizes with the support of the Loulé City Council and the Portuguese Tennis Federation. Afonso Portugal, Gonçalo Falcão and Ricardo Batista not recognize that the access tour Tiago Cação, Luís Faria, Pedro Araújo and Fábio Coelho will be the only Portuguese representatives in action on the main board.
The first to take action was Gonçalo Falcão (1415th completion in the classification ATP and 15th seed in the qualification), who was also the closest to winning: the 34-year-old Portuguese lost 7-6, 3-6 and 10-7 to the Spaniard Mike Martínez (without classification).
Afterwards, Ricardo Batista gave in 6-1 and 6-2 to the first favorite, Alberto Barroso Campos (596th), and already closing the day, in a duel that ended around 10:30 pm, Afonso Portugal offered resistance, but was unable to counter the favoritism of the British Joshua Paris (1097th), which won with the partials of 7-5 and 6-3.
With these results, Portugal cannot confirm by any player in the third and final qualification, which marks the start (10 am) of Thursday’s journey at the Loulé Tennis Club. However, four Portuguese tennis players will play later, with the start of the main frame: Tiago Cação faces Alejandro Moro Canas, Pedro Araújo measures with initiative Victor Durasovic and Luís Faria Fábio Coelho will have to wait for the conclusion of the qualifying phase to get to know the first devices.
Weather permitting, all matches in the first round of the singles main table will be played this Thursday.