(Photo: Thiago Ribeiro)
Brazil is advancing in the United States! In the men’s doubles bracket of the Masters 1000 in Miami, tennis player Marcelo Melo from Minas Gerais beat an American pair and qualified for the quarter-final stage of the tournament. He is the last athlete in the country still alive in the competition, after the eliminations of Bia Haddad, Ingrid Gamarra MartinsLuisa Stefani and Thiago Wild.
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Competing alongside Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Marcelo defeated Ben Shelton and Christopher Eubanks, the home team, by a score of 2 to 1 (6/7 [5-7], 7/5 and 10/8). They lost in the first set, but managed to turn things around in the following stages, in a match that lasted almost two hours. Now, Melo and his partner face the number 2 seeds, Croatian Ivan Dodig and American Austin Krajicek. The duel will take place this Wednesday (27), around 4 pm (Brasília-DF time).
Marcelo Melo remains with a chance of winning his second Miami Masters 1000 title. In the 2017 edition, he became champion alongside Poland’s Łukasz Kubot. To do so, they defeated Jack Sock and Nicholas Monroe, both from the United States, in a 2-0 decision (7/5 and 6/3). Furthermore, the 40-year-old Brazilian tennis player has also been a semi-finalist on two occasions: 2015 and 2019. In the first, he played alongside his compatriot Bruno Soares, while in the second Marcelo also played with Łukasz Kubot.
Journalist from Espírito Santo graduated from PUC-SP and lover of Olympic and Paralympic sports.
