Spaniard David Ferrer won the ATP World Tour Competition’s Rio de Janeiro Open Tennis Championship in the second edition men singles category. The championship awards amount to a total of $3,213,305.
The championship witnessed fierce competition with the participation of two players, who are among the best five international players – Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer – as well as three other players who are among the best 20 international players – Tommy Robredo, Fabio Fognin, and Nicolas Almagro.
Ferrer, who is ranked 9th on the ATP, won the final game at the expense of his Italian rival Fabio Fognini, with 2 points to 6 and 3 points to 6. Ferrer, as a result, reaped the championship points, approaching the status of Czech player Tomas Berdych, who is ranked 8th on the ATP.
Ferrer qualified for the final game after winning against Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver in the first round and then managing to overcome Dutch player, Thiemo de Bakker, in the second round. He then won against Argentinean player Juan Mónaco in the quarter finals by 3-6, 6-4, 2-6, to face the Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer in the semi-finals, winning by 5-7, 1-6.
Meanwhile, Fabio Fognini won against Czech player Jiří Veselý in the first round of the championships and won against Spanish Pablo Andújar in the second round. He further beat Argentinean player Federico Delbonis in the quarterfinals with 4-6, 7-6, 6-7. In the semi-final men singles game, he won over the 2014 championship title holder Rafael Nadal in the biggest surprise of the competition by 6-1, 2-6, 5-7.
In the doubles men category, the title was won by Slovak player Martin Kližan and Austrian Philipp Oswald by managing to defeat Austrian player Oliver Marach and his Spanish colleague Pablo Andújar in the final game by 6-7, 4-6 points. Last year, Colombian duo Juan Sebastián Cabal and Robert Farah won the title.
Meanwhile, Italian Sara Errani was awarded the championship title in the singles women’s category by beating Slovak Anna Schmiedlová in the final game with 6-7, 1-6. Japanese Kurumi Nara had won last year’s title.
Errani’s path towards the title included a game against Brazilian Teliana Pereira in the first round of the competition and then Spanish Lourdes Domínguez Lino in the second round. Sara defeated Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia in the quarterfinals by 6-3, 6-7 before Haddad Maia withdrew from the game. And, in the semi-final, Sara Errani defeated her Swedish rival Johanna Larsson by 5-7, 3-6.
Furthermore, Anna Schmiedlová made it to the final game by beating Belgium player Alison Van Uytvanck in the first round. She further achieved her second victory in the championship in the second round at the expense of the Argentinean Paula Ormaechea. In the quarterfinals, she won by 3-6, 1-6 over her Paraguayan rival Verónica Cepede Royg, and in the semi-final she overcame her Romanian rival Irina-Camelia Begu by 3-6, 6-4, 2-6.
In the women doubles competitions, duo Belgium Ysaline Bonaventure and Swedish Rebecca Peterson won the championship title in a game with Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu and her Argentinean mate María Irigoyen who withdrew after the first half.
