Goffin Beats Defending Champion Sousa In Estoril

Joao Sousa made Portuguese history last year by winning the Millennium Estoril Open, his home tournament. But the defending champion will not retain his trophy, with fourth seed David Goffin ousting Sousa 6-3, 6-2 on Thursday.

The 2017 Nitto ATP Finals runner-up, competing in Estoril for the first time, is into his second ATP Tour quarter-final of the season (Marseille SF), where he will face Tunisian Malek Jaziri, who defeated Argentine Leonardo Mayer 7-6(2), 6-1.

The former World No. 7 struggled in 2018 due to injury — a freak accident in Rotterdam leading to an eye injury, and an elbow injury at the end of the season — but the Belgian will take confidence from his performance against defending champion Sousa. Goffin won 51 per cent of first-serve return points and broke the Portuguese’s serve six times en route to his 80-minute victory.

Goffin will look to avenge a three-set loss against Jaziri from Shenzhen in 2016, which is their only previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting. The winner could potentially face top seed and reigning Nitto ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas, who will play home favorite Joao Domingues in the last eight.

In a battle of lucky losers, Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas defeated Italian Filippo Baldi 6-2, 7-5 in one hour and 28 minutes. Cuevas will face the winner of eighth seed Frances Tiafoe and Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka.

Did You Know?
It is the second straight week on the ATP Tour that a player has lost in the final round of qualifying, beaten his same opponent in the first round of the main draw, and continued onto the quarter-finals. Cuevas lost to Italian Salvatore Caruso in Estoril qualifying before beating him and then Baldi. Last week in Barcelona, Nicolas Jarry lost to Marcel Granollers, avenged that defeat and reached the quarter-finals.