Madrid (Spain) – After managing to break through to enter the main draw of the Masters 1000 in Madrid, Thiago Monteiro from Ceará maintained his momentum and achieved a great victory in the first round. This Thursday, he had a great performance and beat Serbian Dusan Lajovic in straight sets, with partials of 6/4 and 6/3.
Classified for the second round, the number 2 in Brazil and current 118th in the world will face a very tough competition against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, seeded number 6, who is in great form after winning the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 title and to be runner-up at the ATP 500 in Barcelona.
This was the Ceará native’s fourth victory in 13 Masters 1000 matches and also the fourth in seven matches against Lajovic. Against Tsitsipas, he will play his tenth game against a top 10, registering six defeats and three wins, one of them in the current season at the Rio Open, where Carlos Alcaraz withdrew early in the game.
The two wins in the quali and this one in the first round in the main draw will help Monteiro recover some ground in the rankings. For now he is gaining nine places and rising to 109th place. To return to the top 100, the Brazilian will need at least two more triumphs in the Caixa Mágica.
Solidity was highlighted at the beginning
The first set was quite balanced, with a very consistent performance from both sides, but with Monteiro showing a little more ease in his service games, winning 78% of the points against 64% for Lajovic. The Ceará native’s best performance ended up being rewarded in the final stretch, when he managed a solitary break to take the lead.
Monteiro had a very solid performance to close the opening half, managed to get the better of the number of winning balls (5 to 4) and even made fewer unforced errors than his Serbian rival, with just two against Lajovic’s three.
Five games that defined the game
Taking advantage of the good moment, the left-hander from Ceará started a sequence of five games, as in addition to winning the last two of the first set, with a break of zero to close, he also won the first three of the second, beating Lajovic’s serve in the second game, in which the Serb reached 40-15, but Monteiro fought and went for the break-point.
Solid from start to finish, the Brazilian controlled the match and had no problem managing the advantage he gained at the start of the second half. Monteiro closed the game, after 1h12 of the duel, with 83% service success, compared to Lajovic’s 60%, he had more winning balls than his rival (13 to 9) and made the same 10 unforced errors as the Serb.
