Guido Pella shocked the tennis world at Wimbledon, where he overcame a two-set deficit to defeat Marin Cilic and reach the third round. Now, the Argentine is in Umag and on clay, not grass. But the left-hander is still showing good form.
Pella defeated Istanbul champion Taro Daniel 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 at the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag on Monday, breaking four times in the final two sets to advance. The 28-year-old will try to reach his sixth tour-level quarter-final of the season against seventh seed Joao Sousa or Slovenian Aljaz Bedene.
Pella has climbed as high as No. 39 in the ATP Rankings, and he is pursuing his first ATP World Tour title, having reached the final in Rio de Janeiro two years ago and in Munich in 2017.
Laslo Djere triumphed in the only other singles match of the day, ousting former World No. 19 Pablo Cuevas 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 after two hours, 10 minutes. The Serbian, who has made two tour-level semi-finals (2017 Budapest and 2018 Istanbul), will next play fifth seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas or Croatian wild card Nino Serdarusic.
Four seeds will be in action on Tuesday with sixth seed Robin Haase, seventh seed Joao Sousa, eighth seed Benoit Paire and ninth seed Maximilian Marterer beginning their campaigns.
Did You Know?
Pella’s victory against Cilic at Wimbledon was his third against a Top 10 opponent. He beat Dominic Thiem in Chengdu last year and Janko Tipsarevic in Dusseldorf five years ago.
Source: ATP
