Chile Open: Chilean wildcards out as three out of four seeds advance

THREE of the four seeded players who took to the court in Santiago yesterday are through to the final eight after straight-set wins on the clay. In the upset of the day, Argentinian qualifier, Renzo Olivo defeated fourth seed, Pablo Cuevas in three epic sets.

The little-known 297th ranked Argentinian made his way through qualifying and had a good first round win, only to come up against the 60th ranked Uruguayan in Cuevas. In fairness to the fourth seed, his form has been somewhat lacklustre, losing to 106th ranked lucky loser, Attila Balazs at the Rio Open last round and tumbled 14 spots as a consequence. In the match, both players were inconsistent with their serve, producing a combined 19 double faults and Cuevas actually had a higher serving rating and higher return rating, but Olivo just stood up in crunch moments on his way to a 5-7 7-6 7-6 victory. The match lasted three hours and 24 minutes, with Olivo winning 7-5 in the second set tiebreaker and 10-8 in the deciding set tiebreak. Olivo’s ranking is so low, the 27-year-old has also bolted up 52 spots in the rankings up to 245th in the world and a win in the quarter finals could see him go as high as 205th on the ATP Tour.

Olivo now faces sixth seed Bolivian, Hugo Dellien in the last eight after he saw off local hope, Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera 6-3 7-6. Second seed Norwegian, Casper Ruud also booked a spot in the last eight by downing a Chilean wildcard, defeating Alejandro Tabilo 6-4 7-5 to meet Argentinian, Federico Delbonis in the quarters. Delbonis defeated Salvatore Caruso in the Round of 16, with a win of 7-6 and 6-3 victory over the Italian.

ROUND OF 16 RESULTS:

[2] C. Ruud (NOR) defeated [WC] A. Tabilo (CHI)
[Q] R. Olivo (ARG) defeated [4] P. Cuevas (URU) 5-7 7-6 7-6
[6] H. Dellien (BOL) defeated [WC] M. Barrios Cera (CHI) 6-3 7-6
[7] F. Delbonis (ARG) defeated S. Caruso (ITA) 7-6 6-3.

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