Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will play his first round match at the Rio Open against Brazilian wild card Thiago Monteiro on Wednesday.
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Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to Nicolas Almagro of Spain, during a Rio Open tennis match, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016.
Monteiro, who is ranked 338th in the world and was making his ATP World Tour debut in this match, secured the only break in the third set to pull off the upset.
Also in action for a second consecutive day are Dominic Thiem and David Ferrer who are on course for a quarter-final meeting if they come through their second round encounters. I felt so bad physically. He’s going to be a top player, for sure.
“He’s a very great player”, Ferrer said of Thiem. ‘It was good experience for me anyway, even if it was hard for me’. I like his game and tomorrow is going to be tough I know.
Top seed Nadal, a semi-finalist in Buenos Aires last week, continued his dominance of Spanish countryman Nicolas Almagro with a 6-3 7-5 victory.
Awaiting Nadal in the last eight is Alexandr Dolgopolov after the Ukrainian beat Spain’s Inigo Cervantes 3-6 6-0 6-3.
Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver joined Thiem in the quarterfinals as he advanced when seventh-seed Fabio Fognini was forced to retire.
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In the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournament, which is taking place at the same time as the ATP tournament, Brazil’s Paula Goncalves obtained her second victory of her career on Thursday when she defeated Sweden’s Johanna Larson (seeded number two in the tournament).
