Roberto Bautista, Pablo Andújar, Sara Sorribes and Pedro Martínez Portero. Four Valencians, three men and one woman, will enter the main draw of the Australian Open. With a novelty. The 23-year-old from Alcireño will do so without having to play the qualifying round for the first time in three appearances in Melbourne.
The pandemic could not with what it was going to be the best year of Pedro Martínez Portero. The Alcireño saw his attempt to reach the Top-100 cut short in March 2020 when the circuit was interrupted, but when he resumed his ascent was meteoric and shen other tennis player has finished 2020 with a greater rise in positions, Canadian Vasek Pospisil, who rose 89 positions to number 61.
The Alcireño has climbed 86 positions, until 85, his best ranking. He has surpassed all the previous ones played in 2020, except Cincinnatti, and played the final draw of the Australian Open, where he reached the second round; from Rio de Janeiro, where he reached the quarterfinals; from Rome, where he reached the second round, against Shapovalov; The same as at Roland Garros, where he reached the third round, losing to the revelation Sebastian Korda, who deprived him of Nadal in the next round.
It started in Paris as the 105th in the world and catapulted to the Top-100. With his current ranking in 2021, everything will be much more lavish on the ATP circuit, leaving behind Challengers such as Marbella, who won after being a finalist in Alicante against Carlos Alcaraz.
In Australia, where he peaked last year with his second round in which he fell to Medvedev, a bar he later raised at Roland Garros, he will not have to play the qualifying round., something that in the Grand Slam only happened last year at the US Open, when it was number 106, due to the resignations of other tennis players to play it given the health situation at that time in New York. In 2021 it will do so on its own merits.
The Alcireño will travel directly on the 15th to Melbourne, where he will isolate himself in his hotel for 14 days, as the organization and the country require, although he will be able to go to train for a few hours a day, always with the same player. The Australian Open has been delayed this year due to the pandemic, and will run from February 8-21.
Carlos Alcaraz, the best irruption of 2020, will play the previous
The executioner of the Alcireño in Villena will play the previous phase, for the second time after his defeat in his debut at Roland Garros, with 17 years. The Murcian, the jewel that Juan Carlos Ferrero polishes in Equelite, starred in an even more spectacular rise in 2020, sneaking into the Top150 after climbing 350 positions.
He is the current number 141 and reached 136 in October after winning three Challengers, something that only Gasquet had achieved before he was younger. And that the pandemic left him unable to play tournaments for which he had a wildcard. He won in Trieste, Barcelona and Alicante, and lost in Cordenons to Bernabé Zapata.
Now he is preparing his first Australian Open preview with Pablo Carreño, a partner at Ferrero’s academy. This will take place in Doha (Qatar), from January 10 to 13, and will be the first time that a preliminary phase has been played outside the country of the tournament: in Doha the masculine one, and in Dubai the feminine one.
Alcaraz was chosen by his teammates as the best breakthrough of 2020, in a vote in which other ‘NextGen’ stars were also nominated, such as Sebastian Korda, Lorenzo Musetti, Jurij Rodionov, Emil Ruusuvuori and Thiago Seyboth. «I thank the ATP and all those who voted for me in the award for the breakthrough of the year. I’m happy, “Alcaraz said on the ATP website. “Honestly, this would not be possible without my team, we did a great job.”
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