PORTUGAL - No. 1 seed Casper Ruud of Norway and No. 2 seed Hubert Hurkacz of Poland both reached the semifinals of the Millennium Estoril Open with victories Friday in Portugal.
Ruud converted 3 of 5 break-point opportunities on his way to defeating Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics 6-3, 6-2. Fucsovics was fighting through an injury throughout the match. Hurkacz had to pull out a tiebreaker win before besting Spanish qualifier Pablo Llamas Ruiz 7-6 (4), 6-4. Hurkacz went 8-for-8 saving break points, including five in the first set, when the players held serve all the way to 6-6.
In the semifinals, Ruud will face Pedro Martinez of Spain -- a 6-4, 6-4 winner over lucky loser Richard Gasquet of France -- while Hurkacz will meet Chilean Cristian Garin, who ended the home-soil run of Portugal’s Nuno Borges with a 6-2, 7-6 (3) result. Playing on a protected ranking, Matteo Berrettini defeated fellow Italian and fourth seed Lorenzo Sonego 6-3, 7-6 (5) to advance to the semifinals in Marrakech, Morocco.
The 2021 Wimbledon finalist is playing just his second event of the season, but he managed to win an overwhelming 83.6 percent of his first-serve points (46 of 55) and hit five aces to beat Sonego. That result left No. 7 seed Mariano Navone of Argentina as the only seeded player left standing. Navone beat Australian Aleksandar Vukic of Australia 6-2, 6-4. Berrettini will face Navone in one semifinal, while Russia’s Pavel Kotov will meet Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena in the other. Kotov cruised past Italian qualifier Fabio Fognini 6-1, 6-2, while Carballes Baena beat American qualifier Nicolas Moreno De Alboran 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
