2023-05-17 13:52:49
The Argentine tennis player Francisco Cerundolo will face the Norwegian Casper Ruud today for the quarterfinals of the Masters 1000 in Rome, in search of a new success after having beaten the Italian Jannik Sinner in the previous round.
Cerúndolo, ranked 31st in the ATP world ranking, will try to establish himself among the top four of the tournament that is played at the Foro Italico against the Norwegian “top ten” Ruud (4) in a match that will begin at 2:00 p.m. of Argentina) and will be televised by ESPN.
The 24-year-old Argentinian starred in a great performance in Rome with successive wins over the Chinese Yibing Wu (57), the Frenchman Gregoire Barrere (63) and the aforementioned Italian Sinner (8).
Cerúndolo has good chances against Ruud, whom he beat twice, last year in Bastad, Sweden, and last April at the Conde de Godó, in Barcelona, while he lost in the semifinals of the 2022 Miami Masters 1000.
In the case of winning, “Fran” Cerúndolo will meet in the semifinals with the Serbian Novak Djokovic (1) or the Danish Holger Rune (7).
Djokovic, 35, has won the Masters 1000 in Rome six times, the first in 2008 and the last one last year.
The quarterfinals will be completed this Thursday with two matches: Daniil Medvedev (Russia, 3) against Yannick Hanfmann (Germany, 101) and Borna Coric (Croatia, 16) against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (5),
Meanwhile, in the women’s draw there will be two matches for the quarterfinals: the Polish Iga Swiatek (1) will meet not before 3:30 p.m. with the Kazakh Elena Rybakina (6) and the Spanish Paula Badosa (35) will face the Latvian Jelena Ostapenk0 (20).
The Masters 1000 in Rome, which is played in parallel between the ATP and the WTA, will distribute prizes for 8,637,966 euros and throughout its history it has had four Argentine tennis players as champions.
Those who lifted the trophy in Rome were Guillermo Vilas in the 1980 edition, José Luis Clerc was crowned in 1981 and Alberto “Luli” Mancini in 1989.
However, the most outstanding of the Argentines was Gabriela Sabatini, who was crowned at the Foro Italico four times: 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1992.
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