Gulbis enters the finals of the Cuga “Challenger” tournament
Zuga (Switzerland), July 30, LETA. Latvian men’s tennis first racket Ernests Gulbis reached the final of the Challenger tournament in Cūga on Friday.
Gulbis, who is ranked 365th in the ATP ranking, beat the Bulgarian Dimitar Kuzmanov (ATP 189th) in the semi-finals with the result 6-4, 6-1.
Reaching the final has provided the Latvian with 75 world ranking points, and he earned another five points for overcoming the qualification. The performance in the Zuga tournament will allow Gulbi to return to the third hundred in the ranking.
Gulbis will play in the final of a “Challenger” tournament for the ninth time in his career and will look to win his sixth title at this level. The last time he played in the final was in March 2020, when he won the Po tournament trophy.
In the final, he will face the Frenchman Joffre Blancanou (ATP 165) or the Swiss Dominik Stefan Stricker (ATP 172).
It has already been reported that in the first round, Gulbis beat Italian athlete Gianluca Magera (ATP 150), the sixth seed of the tournament, 6-7 (4:7), 6-4, 6-2, in the second round, 6-4, 7-6 (7 :4) defeated the French tennis player Hugo Blanchet (ATP 349), but in the quarter-finals he was superior to the Austrian tennis player Denis Novak (ATP 166) 6-1, 7-6 (7:2). In the qualification, the Latvian tennis player won 6-4, 6-2 against Anton Matusevičas, who represents Great Britain (ATP 597th), and with 0-6, 7-5, 6-4 – Israeli tennis player Ishai Olieil (ATP 355th)
Gulbis has won 26 out of 42 matches this season, mostly playing in “Challenger” tournaments. The Latvian has not participated in the main tournaments of the ATP ranking since the summer of last year.
The Cuga “Challenger” tournament takes place on clay courts.
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