MADRID, 8 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The tennis player from Vigo Martín de la Puente qualified this Wednesday for the semifinals of Roland Garros, which is played on clay, and thus became the first Spaniard to qualify for the penultimate round of a ‘Grand Slam’ tournament.
The Galician, who currently occupies the number 7 in the world ranking of singles, came back against the Belgian Joachim Gerard, number 4 of said list, with a favorable 3-6, 7-6(2) and 6-4. His rival for a place in the grand final will be the Japanese Tokito Oda, number 2 in the specialty.
The other semifinal will face the British Alfie Hewett and the Argentine Gustavo Fernández, who complete that ‘top 3’ of the ranking. Both were defeated by De la Puente 10 days ago at the Barcelona Open TRAM tournament, where he captured the first ITF Series 1 title of his career.
De la Puente had already reached the final of another ITF Series 1 this year in Rotterdam (Netherlands) last February, as well as being a semifinalist in the Melbourne-1 (Australia), Bolton (United Kingdom) and Open Vendée tournaments. (France).
In Paris he disputes what is his fourth ‘Grand Slam’ after debuting last year, also at Roland Garros. At the US Open he won the doubles title with the Frenchman Nicolas Peifer and, months later, he was also the first Spaniard to win the doubles Masters with the Argentinean Gustavo Fernández.