Cerúndolo beat Tabilo to reach Rome round three, Báez out to Bublik | OneFootball

On paper, a close match was expected against Chilean Alejandro Tabilo, who has been in good form and is ranked No. 35 in the world, but the Argentine delivered a crushing performance at the Italian Masters 1000 and claimed a 6-0, 6-2 victory. Báez, meanwhile, fell easily to Kazakhstan’s Bublik.

Francisco Cerúndolo left no room for doubt in his debut at the Rome Masters 1000, the clay-court tournament held in the Italian capital that serves as a lead-up to the French Open at Roland Garros, as he convincingly defeated Chilean Alejandro Tabilo 6-0, 6-2.

The elder of the Cerúndolo brothers, who this week lost his status as Argentina’s top-ranked player after slipping to No. 27 in the world rankings, behind Tomás Etcheverry (No. 26), stepped onto the court at the Foro Italico determined to show he was fully fit and quickly stormed to a 6-0 first set against an opponent who had been considered dangerous beforehand.

Cerúndolo dominated from start to finish and overwhelmed the Chilean, who had arrived in good form after a solid win in his opener against Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta (No. 91), who came through qualifying, by 6-2, 6-1.

The Buenos Aires native entered directly in the second round on Friday and turned in a dominant performance: he took the first set in less than half an hour and wrapped up the match in one hour and 10 minutes.

His next opponent will come from the match also being played this Friday between Italian top-10 player Lorenzo Musetti, currently world No. 10, and France’s Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

The exact opposite happened to Sebastián Báez, world No. 65, who was barely able to put up any resistance against Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik and was eliminated in the tournament’s second round.

Báez, who had managed to snap a three-match first-round losing streak in his match last Wednesday against American Jenson Brooksby, went down easily this Friday to the current world No. 11, 6-1, 6-2, after exactly one hour of play.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.