Saturday’s results in Challenger Tour: Sam Barry and James Duckwroth to fight for the title in Bangkok

Mestre, Italy, €42,500 (Outdoor Clay) :

Gastao Elias will play in his second Challenger final this season (14th in career) after beating top seed Paolo Lorenzi 5-7 6-2 6-2, avenging the loss to Italian in Bucaramanga (in the third set tie break). Two fine clay-courters were settled down into a nice rhythm on serve right from the start, with only two deuces and no break points in the first 11 games. Out of sudden, Lorenzi broke his younger rival in the next game to win the set 7-5, moving closer to his yet another Challenger final. Still, Elias was determined to prevent that, starting to play even better from the second set. He broke Lorenzi in the first game of the set and after saving two break points on own serve in the next game it was much easier for Portuguese to control the result. He made another break in game 7 to go 5-2 up, and the set was soon over when he saved the break point in the final 8th game to force a decider. Carried by this momentum, Gastao saved the best for the last, taking the third set by 6-2, not facing a break point in this part of the match and breaking Lorenzi in the 3rd and 7th games.Gastao will face another experienced player in the title match, Horacio Zeballos, who made his first Challenger final of the season after being stopped 3 times in the last 4. This will be 24th final for the 31-year-old, looking to claim the 14th title. Zeballos had no troubles to pass Joris De Loore 6-3 6-3, in what was only the second Challenger semi-final entrance for the Belgian (Mohammedia 2014). It was a toe-to-toe battle in the first 6 games, …

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