Thiago Wild knocks out a seed and reaches the Madrid Open third round. Brazil’s No. 1 beats Lorenzo Musetti and eliminates another top-50 player at the Madrid Masters 1000.
Thiago Wild has knocked out another top-50 player at the Madrid Open. After beating Russia’s Roman Safiullin (ranked 42nd), the Brazilian on Friday defeated Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, ranked 29th in the ATP rankings and seeded 28th at the Masters 1000, 6-4, 6-4. With that, Brazil’s No. 1 and the world No. 63 advanced to the third round on the Madrid clay.
With the result, Wild matched his best run at a Masters 1000 event; he also reached the third round at Indian Wells and Miami this year. The Brazilian now awaits the winner of the match between Kazakhstan’s Alexander Shevchenko and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 3 and the second seed in Madrid.
On Friday, Thiago Wild played very aggressive tennis and turned the match around well whenever he was under pressure. In both sets, the Brazilian saved break points and then broke the Italian in the next game. That was the difference in the 6-4, 6-4 win.
Brazil has two more players in the Madrid Open men’s main draw. João Fonseca and Thiago Monteiro take the court on Saturday looking for a third-round spot against Britain’s Cameron Norrie and Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, respectively.
Beatriz Haddad Maia is the country’s representative in the women’s draw and also plays on Saturday. She faces American Emma Navarro for a spot in the round of 16.
