LISBON, March 31, 2018
No. 4 seed Lloyd Harris extended his unbeaten run on the Cascais Next Gen Tour, clinching his second consecutive ITF Pro Circuit title in Portugal. The 21-year-old from South Africa defeated No. 7 seed and local favourite Frederico Ferreira Silva 7-6(2), 7-6(3) in Saturday’s singles final of the $25,000 hard court event, held at the Lisboa Racket Center in Lisbon.
About 400 spectators witnessed a match without any breaks. Harris fired 13 aces, winning 93 per cent of his first service points to prevail after one hour and 42 minutes.
After lifting his 13th career trophy in Vilamoura last weekend, his first on European soil, Harris is now on a 10-mach winning streak. The Cape Town native earns $3,600 in prize money as well as 25 ATP ranking points.
“I’m obviously very, very happy to have managed to win another title. I played extremely well in these two weeks and today was a very good final,” Harris told Portuguese tennis website Raquetc. “It was a close match, only one or two points made the difference in the end today. The wind did not bother so much and this allowed me to find the rhythm with my first service, which helped me to win most of the points with. This made a difference in the tie-breaks.”
Harris will now return to the ATP Challenger Tour, competing in Taipei in two weeks time.
Ferreira Silva was looking to capture his third Futures title of the season. He also fell to Harris in the second round of last week’s tournament.
“Lloyd played two great weeks, full of confidence. However, I feel that I played better against him this time than last week. I served better, I felt more comfortable on the court and also had my opportunities in the tie-break but he served very well,” Ferreira Silva commented after finishing runner-up.
“It was a very important week to achieve one of my first goals, which was to guarantee a return to the top 300 in the world. I will gain motivation and confidence for the upcoming tournaments.”
Earlier in the day, Kenneth Raisma of Estonia and Emil Ruusuvuori from Finland captured the doubles title. The duo edged past Canadian Steven Diez and Bruno Mardones of Spain 7-6(2), 6-2. The encounter lsted one hour and 11 minutes.
