Madrid (Spain) – Spaniard Marcel Granollers and Argentine Horacio Zeballos had a hard time securing a place in the semifinals of the Masters 1000 in Madrid. Seeded number 2, they saved four match points this Thursday to beat the Monegasque Hugo Nys and the Polish Jan Zielinski, with partials of 4/6, 6/2 and 16-14.
Their opponents in the semi-finals will be Uruguayan Ariel Behar and Czech Adam Pavlasek, who eliminated North Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow, seeded 15th, in another match defined only in the match-tiebreak, recording a final score of 6/3, 4/6 and 10-6.
With this week’s campaign on Madrid clay, Granollers and Zeballos will jointly take the lead in the doubles ranking next Monday, leaving Australian Matthew Ebden and Indian Rohan Bopanna behind. It will be the first time for both of them as number 1 in the world, with the biggest achievement being third place.
The match against Nys and Zielinski was fiercely contested, especially the remarkable 27-minute match-tiebreak, which saw 30 points played and the winners acclaimed by a noisy crowd at the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium. The 2021 champions used all of their experience to come out on top in one of the most dramatic shoot-outs of the season so far.
Murray/Venus against Korda/Thompson in the other semi
The day was also a day of definition on the other side of the doubles bracket. Executioners of the main favorites Bopanna and Ebden in their debut, the North American Sebastian Korda and the Australian Jordan Thompson remain firmly in the dispute, beating the Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in the quarterfinals with partial scores of 7/6 (7-5) and 6/ 4.
In the semi-final, Korda and Thompson will face Britain’s Jamie Murray and New Zealand’s Michael Venus, seeded 11th, who were beaten in the first set by France’s Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul, the 16th highest ranked pair in the competition, but then they looked for a comeback and triumphed with scores of 0/6, 6/4 and 10-2.
Tags: Granollers Zeballos save matchpoints number
