Updated at 12:34 pm, after the defeat of Thiago Monteiro and Flavio Cobolli
Madrid (Spain) – Marcelo Melo’s campaign in the doubles bracket of the Masters 1000 in Madrid didn’t last long. This Tuesday, playing alongside the American Rajeev Ram, he was defeated in his debut. The executioners were the Ecuadorian Gonzalo Escobar and the Kazakh Alexander Nedovyesov, who won with partials of 4/6, 6/3 and 10-8 in 1h21 of the match.
Guests of the organization, Escobar and Nedovyesov will face in the round of 16 the French Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul, seeds 16, who defeated the partnership between Ceará’s Thiago Monteiro and the Italian Flavio Cobolli by 6/2 and 6/3 in just 51 minutes. Owners of three titles on the circuit playing together, Doumbia and Reboul’s best record in Masters 1000 was last year’s Shanghai semifinal.
In turn, Monteiro says goodbye to the Madrid tournament after reaching the third round in the singles, falling to Czech Jiri Lehecka. Despite the elimination, the Brazilian comes out more confident with your level of play and hopes to maintain his good form following the clay season. He will play in the coming weeks in Rome and Roland Garros.
Melo and Ram have a good start, but do not sustain an advantage
The eighth highest rated pair on Madrid clay, Marcelo Melo and Rajeev Ram started well and were the first to break, opening 3/1. But Escobar and Nedovyesov reacted quickly and returned the break soon after to tie at 3/3. After saving a break point in the seventh, the Minas Gerais and the North American scored another break in the tenth and thus closed the first set.
In the second half, Escobar and Nedovyesov achieved a comfortable advantage, with a break in the first game and then another in the fifth, to score 5/1. The Brazilian and the North American returned one of the breaks, but that was it and the decision went to the match-tiebreak, in which the Kazakh and the Ecuadorian were superior and secured the victory.
