The score of the third set, one way, badly tells the difficulties encountered by Adrian Mannarino on Friday against Roberto Quiroz (6-4, 4-6, 6-1), on the occasion of the second single of the Davis Cup play-off between the France and Ecuador. Despite more than 300 places difference in the ATP ranking, the Frenchman, 58th in the world, had to work against the Ecuadorian, 381st, who had set the tone by succeeding in the entry break. Immediately back up, “Manna” took advantage of his opponent’s errors at 5-4 to pocket a very balanced first set.
We then imagined the 33-year-old player gradually taking over. On the contrary, it is Quiroz who has increased his level of play. Beaten in the last two weeks by the 470th and 606th players in the world (Lucas Gerch and Jaimee Floyd Angele) in Cancun, Mexico during Futures tournaments – the third division of professional tennis – the Ecuadorian gave the Frenchman a lot of trouble thanks to his backhand slices and his forehand accelerations in a much more competitive left-handed duel than expected. After saving three break points at 2-2, Mannarino finally cracked at 4-4. And despite three double faults at 5-4 in his favor, Quiroz, more enterprising on the key points, returned to a set everywhere.
But like against Andrey Rublev in the last Davis Cup finals, in November 2021, Quiroz exploded after two sets. Against the Russian as against the French, he scored only eight points in the decisive set. In fifteen minutes, Mannarino led 5-0. He concluded a few minutes later.
Thanks to this success, which followed that of Arthur Rinderknech against Emilio Gomez (6-2, 7-5), France leads 2-0 at the end of the first day of this barrage. Saturday, the pair Nicolas Mahut – Pierre-Hugues Herbert could offer qualification to the Blues.
