Marcos Baghdatis pulled off a stunner at the Open Sud de France on Thursday evening in Montpellier, upsetting defending champion and top seed Lucas Pouille 7-6(2), 6-7(3), 6-4.
The 33-year-old Cypriot came back from a break down in the opener and broke twice more in the decider to earn his first Top 20 victory since last year’s Wimbledon when he beat then-No. 7 Dominic Thiem.
Baghdatis is into his first tour-level quarter-final of the season and will meet Moldova’s Radu Albot for a semi-final spot at the ATP Tour 250. And to think, Baghdatis almost didn’t make it out of qualifying.
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The World No. 128 trailed No. 461 Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc by a set in the first round of qualifying, but rallied and has dropped only one set since, including qualifying matches.
Pouille won their first FedEx ATP Head2Head series clash at last year’s US Open. Just two weeks ago, he reached the Australian Open semi-finals, his best Grand Slam result.
But Baghdatis, playing in his first tour-level event of the year, stayed focused as the home crowd tried to rally their defending champion. Serving for the match, Baghdatis erased a break point and clinched the second rounder with only his third and fourth aces.
Albot reached the fourth tour-level quarter-final of his career by beating Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4 in two hours and 34 minutes. If Albot defeats Baghdatis, he will advance to just his second ATP Tour semi-final (Metz 2018).
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Baghdatis is pursuing his first tour-level semi-final since Chengdu in 2017. The Cypriot last captured a title in 2010 at Sydney.
Source: ATP World Tour
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