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Ferrer and Pella advance to quarter finals in Rio Open

Xinhua, February 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

Spanish tennis player David Ferrer and Argentinian Guido Pella progressed this Thursday to the quarter finals of the third edition of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Rio Open tournament.

Ferrer, whose match was postponed to Thursday due to a strong downpour on Wednesday, took a further step towards his second consecutive Rio Open title by defeating his fellow countryman Albert Ramos by 2-1 in a match that lasted two hours and 17 minutes full of sunshine and heat on the centre court.

On Friday, Ferrer will be looking to pass to the semi-finals if he beats Austrian Dominic Thiem. Last week, Thiem won the Buenos Aires Open and advanced to the quarter finals in Rio on Wednesday after defeating Argentinian Diego Schwartzmann.

On Court One, Argentinian Guido Pella defeated Colombian Santiago Giraldo 2-1. With this victory, Pella broke the curse which has prevented him from advancing to the quarter finals in any tournament in almost three years.

On Friday, Pella will be looking to progress further in the Brazilian Open when he faces Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver for a pass to the semi-finals. Gimeno-Traver made it through to the quarter finals on Wednesday after Italian Fabio Fognini (seeded number 7 in the tournament by the ATP) retired from the match.

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).

Goncalves, 5, who is currently seeded at number 285 in the WTA ranking, came from the qualification round. After beating Israel's Sahar Peer in the first round she became Brazil's only representative still in the tournament since Gabriela Ce and Teliana Pereira (Brazil's top female player) were eliminated early on.

The Brazilian will play Shelby Rogers (ranked 131 by the WTA) from the United States in the quarter finals.

There are still some matches to play on Thursday such as Rafael Nadal taking on fellow Spaniard Nicolas Amargo. Doubles matches will also be played on the condition that the heavy rain, which has plagued the competition since Monday, stays away.

The tournament, which has been taking place on the Jockey Club Brasileno's clay courts, will end on Sunday. Endit