Seba Báez stopped Díaz Acosta’s record and, together with Navone, they entered the quarterfinals of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro

Three of the eight protagonists of the quarterfinals of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro will be Argentinians. It was already Francisco Cerúndolowho had secured his place the day before, and this Thursday the people of Buenos Aires joined him Mariano Navone AND Sebastiano Baezwho in his particular case won a duel against the Albiceleste Facundo Diaz Acostawho had just been champion at the Argentine Open.

Báez, 30th in the world ranking, blew away Díaz Acosta (59), who arrived with a swollen chest after winning the Buenos Aires Open last week, his best result so far in his career.

Argentina’s third-best racket won with sets 7-6 (7/1) and 6-3 in a tight one-hour, 48-minute duel on the brick dust of Court 1 of the Jockey Club.

Eliminated last year in the quarterfinals by Chile’s Nicolás Jarry, Báez will fight for a place in the semifinals on Friday with the winner of the duel facing Brazilians Thiago Monteiro (117) and Felipe Meligeni (153) on Thursday.

For his part, Mariano Navone (113), after winning his first match in an ATP in the initial round of Rio Janeiro against Federico Coria (85) of Rosario, clearly beat the German Yannick Hanfmann (56) with a sensational 6-1 and 6-2, after just 1 hour and 17 minutes of play.

The Buenos Aires native of 9 de Julio, already entered the Top 90 of the ranking, will face in the quarterfinals the Chilean Cristian Garín (88) or Joao Fonseca (655), the 17-year-old promise of Brazilian tennis, who measured in the last match of the day.

Báez and Francisco Cerúndolo (22), fourth seed, are the main obstacles to prevent the English Cameron Norrie (23), the second seed, achieved an unprecedented two-time championship. The European reached the quarterfinals this Thursday without any major difficulties against the Chilean Thomas Barrios.

In that case he will face one of the surprises of the tournament, the Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wildwho defeated the Spaniards Jaume Munar by 6-2, 4-6 and 6-3 in a match interrupted on Wednesday by a strong storm which forced it to be postponed to this Thursday.

It had been seven years since a Brazilian last reached the quarterfinals of the Rio Open, South America’s only ATP 500.

“It’s always difficult to play a match that lasts two days. Yesterday I started well, I was loose and he was more tense. Today it was the opposite. He started better and I was a little more nervous, but I managed to recover back to the same pace as yesterday and now for “For the first time I’m in the quarter-finals of an ATP 500”.Declared wild.

Cerúndolo, number 1 of the Albiceleste, will look for the Serbian Dusan Lajovic (58) his second passage to the semi-final of the tournament, after 2022, when he was eliminated for Diego Schwartzmann.

Lajovic won 6-2, 7-5 in the Serbian clash against Laslo Djere, sixth seed and 2019 champion.