Tomas Martin Etcheverry needed two matches and almost seven hours of tennis in a single day to win his first title. Rain in Rio de Janeiro pushed his 2026 semi-final into Sunday morning, a struggle past Vit Kopriva that finished 7-6(4) in the third; hours later he beat Alejandro Tabilo 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 for the trophy. It was his fourth tour-level final and the first one he won, after losing at Santiago and Houston in 2023 and to Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in Lyon in 2024.
Born in La Plata in July 1999, Etcheverry stands 1.96 metres and built his game for clay: heavy topspin off the forehand, a two-handed backhand that punishes anything above the shoulder. His breakthrough came at Roland Garros in 2023, four match wins without dropping a set, past Jack Draper, Alex de Minaur and Borna Coric, to a first major quarter-final. He has since won 200 of his 318 tour-level matches on clay, a losing record everywhere else, and holds 1 career title, with rivals like Francisco Cerundolo shaping most of his seasons.
One. Daniel Merida Aguilar, 21 and ranked 82nd, is a tour-level champion for the first time. He beat Damir Dzumhur 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 in the Croatia Open Umag final, breaking serve seven times along the way and recovering from serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set and losing it 7-5, the only set he dropped all week.
Match tale