Francisco Cerúndolo is back: he overwhelmed Ramos Viñolas and reached the quarterfinals of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro

Francisco Cerúndolo is back. The tennis player Argentina’s number one started the year on a bad note, managing only two victories against players outside the world’s top 250, but now he seems to be back at his best and is steadily moving up the rankings ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro. After a difficult debut against Francisco Comesaña (119th), overwhelmingly beat the Spaniards Albert Ramos Vinolas (96th) 6-2 and 6-1 in one hour and 21 minutes of play and qualifies for the quarter-finals.

His rival will be the Serbian, who will win the duel between Laslo Djere AND Dusan Lajovic. Then, in case of a new victory, Fran could meet in the semifinals Sebastiano Baez OR Facundo Díaz Acosta, recent champion of the Argentine Open, who will face each other this Thursday. Locals Thiago Monteiro, favored by Carlos Alcaraz’s injury, or Felipe Meligeni Alves could also reach the final.

At the bottom of the rankings, however, the big surprise of the day came from the 17-year-old Brazilian João Fonseca, who eliminated the Frenchman Arthur Fils (36th in the world) 6-0 and 6-4, achieved the first ATP victory of his career and became the first player born in 2006 to win a match on the great tennis circuit.

His next opponent could be another who has just made his debut with a victory in the elite, the Argentine Mariano Navone who defeated Federico Coria in the first round and will appear in the Top 100 for the first time in his career on Monday. Navone, 22, will also face German Yannick Hanfmann on Thursday and, if he wins, he will face Fonseca on Friday.

The negative vote of the day was given Horace Zeballos and Marcel Granollers, who in the rematch of last Sunday’s final at Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis lost against the Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori at super tiebreaker and they were soon eliminated.

For his part, Machi González and Andrés Molteni, The reigning doubles champions will close out Wednesday’s action on Court 2 to make their debuts against Brazilians Thiago Seyboth Wild and Fernando Romboli.