Friday’s results in Challenger Tour: Elias advances, Eremin reaches last 4 for the first time

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

Instead of going to Paris to play qualifying tournament at Roland Garros (his ranking was below required for the main draw at the time of the entry list), Gastao Elias made the right move of heading to Italy and playing Mestre and Vicenza Challengers. He was victorious in Mestre and will probably repeat that at Vicenza, being the only seed left in the last 4 (other 3 players are ranked outside 190th place). Gastao reached his 4th semi-final of the season by beating 6th seed Nicolas Kicker 6-3 6-4 in an hour and a half. Kicker was off to a better start, breaking Elias in the first game when Portuguese sent the backhand long, but his lead was short-lived as Elias broke back straight away. After that, Gastao settled into a nice rhythm on his serve and he broke Kicker in game 8 for a 5-3 lead, after Argentine’s forehand unforced error. The set was over in the next game, Elias grabs it with a nice backhand down the line winner after some 42 minutes of play. The second set was pretty similar, with Elias dictating the pace with his solid groundstrokes but Kicker saved two break points in the first couple of service games to stay in touch until 3-3. Gastao broke in game 7 with another beautiful winner that stayed unreachable for Nicolas but the Argentine soon broke back after a nice forehand attack. Instead of further struggle and possible tie break, Elias made another break in game 9 and he sealed the win on own serve after that, following another forehand error from Kicker.The other Argentine, Guido Andreozzi, had a better luck, ousting experienced Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-3 6-2 in what was the shortest match of the day. Andreozzi faced no break points in the entire match and he won 40% of return points, which was enough to control the match from start to finish. Gimeno-Traver did well to stay in touch with his rival in the first part of the set, but he got broken in game 8, sending the …

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