Joao Sousa became the first Portuguese player to enter the final of Umag’s Kozum Croatia Open after defeating second seed Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 on Saturday. Though Sousa lost the first set, he held eight break points against the no.2 seed. But Bautista Agut saved them all and broke the Portuguese in the final game to take the first set. However, world no.51 Sousa stormed back into the match with controlled play and took the net two set easily. He came through with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory in 2 hours and 21 minutes. For the Umag title on Sunday, Sousa will have to deal with fourth seed Dominic Thiem, who scored a 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory over top seed Gael Monfils of France. The Thiem/Monfils match began with the Frenchman dominating the proceeding. He broke Thiem twice and wrested the first set 6-1. In the second set, the turnaround occurred after Thiem saved a break point against him and broke Monfils in the third game. Monfils’ game crumbled after that as he lost his serve thrice more to hand over a surprising victory to the Austrian.
In Bogota’s Claro Open, Second seed Bernard Tomic looked solid in edging out Germany’s Michael Berrer 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. The Australian broke Berrer in the opening game and that was enough for his to take the first set 6-4. But Berrer forced a tiebreak in the second and forced a decider by winning it. Berrer had an edge in the decider after he broke Tomic in the third game. But the Aussie found his own break opportunity and leveled things up. The set went to tiebreak and Tomic played forcefully to win the match. For the title defense, the Australian will have beat Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the final. In the other semifinal at Bogota, Mannarino won in two similar tiebreaks against Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic. The Frenchman survived 17 aces from the Croat, who also won 46 out of his 53 first serve points. But Mannarino kept his nerves under control and made most of the unforced errors from Karlovic to win 7-6, 7-6.