The 30th edition of the Mexican Open men’s tennis tournament in Acapulco is heating up, with the semi-finals to be played Friday night and the final scheduled for Saturday.
A field of 32 players in the main draw of the ATP 500 singles event has been whittled down to just four: Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz of the United States, Holger Rune of Denmark and Alex de Minaur of Australia, with the winner receiving 500 ranking points.
Paul, the No. 7 seed and a semi-finalist at this year’s Australian Open, will meet Fritz, the No. 3 seed, in the first semi-final at the Arena GNP Seguros in the Diamante district of Acapulco, while 19-year-old Rune, the No. 4 seed, will take on de Minaur, the No. 8 seed, in the second semi.
The winners will face off Saturday night in the final of the hardcourt tournament, a lead-up event to the 2023 Indian Wells Masters in California, often called “the fifth slam” of professional tennis.
The Mexican Open champion will receive the “silver gourd” trophy and over US $375,000 in prize money. He will also win the right to don an oversized sombrero, a tradition of the tournament first played in Mexico City in 1993.
Spanish legend Rafael Nadal won last year’s event but did not to return to Acapulco to defend his title this year.
Semi-finals in the doubles event will also be played Friday, ahead of Saturday’s final.
Seventeen-year-old Yucatán native Rodrigo Pacheco Méndez was Mexico’s sole representative in the main singles draw but failed to pass the first round. The wildcard entrant, ranked outside the top 1,000 players in the world, was defeated 6-1, 6-2 by de Minaur.
Three Mexicans contested the main draw of the doubles event – two as a team and one with a French partner – but they too failed to progress to the second round.
The Mexican Open isn’t the only professional tennis tournament taking place in Mexico this week – The Monterrey Open, a women’s tournament branded this year as Abierto GNP Seguros, is underway at Club Sonoma in the Nuevo León capital. The final of the WTA 250 event will be played Sunday after semi-finals on Saturday and quarters on Friday.
No. 1 seed Caroline GarcÃa of France remains in the hunt for the title. Fernanda Contreras Gómez, a 25-year-old San Luis Potosà native, lost in the first round.
The Monterrey tournament follows the Mérida Open in the Yucatán capital last week, won by Camila Giorgi of Italy.
Mexico News DailyÂ
