For the first time so far this season Feliciano López achieved a second consecutive victory in a championship, defeated Australian Jordan Thompson 7-6 (8), 1-6 and 6-3) and reached the quarterfinals of the tournament on Majorcan grass.
The Majorcan tournament is the one chosen by Feliciano to say goodbye, at the age of 41, to his professional career. However, the withdrawal is extended day by day and after beating Thompson it will not be, at least, until Thursday, against the German Yannik Hanfmann, in the quarterfinals, the first of 2023.
In Acapulco (Mexico), in February, he reached the second round. He obtained his only victory of the course before arriving in Mallorca. He beat American Christopher Eubanks and lost, in the round of 16, to Frances Tiafoe, also an American.
He no longer won any game until this week. He played the Murcia challenger and lost to the Italian Matteo Arnaldi; he later went to the Count of Godó, in Barcelona, ??and was beaten by the Belgian David Goffin. And later, on grass, he stagnated in the first round in Stuttgart, eliminated by the Japanese Yosuke Watanuki and in Queen’s, in London, defeated by the French Arthur Rinderknech.
With three defeats and one victory, he arrived in Mallorca, at the last stop on his professional tour, and is already in the quarterfinals. He beat Australia’s Max Purcell and also his compatriot Jordan Thompson on Tuesday.
The goodbye of the Toledo player is delayed again, who in his two decades as a professional has accumulated 506 wins and 489 losses with a balance of seven individual ATP titles.
Feliciano López clings to the competition, which did not falter despite the forceful reaction of Thompson, with whom he had lost in the four previous meetings in which they had coincided, all on hard courts and the most recent one in Dallas in 2022. He closed the face to face with the Australian after two hours and eight minutes.
The Spaniard remains as the great incentive of the Mallorca tournament that was left this Wednesday without his first favourite, the Greek Stéfanos Tsitsipás who again stagnated in the first round of an event on grass, surpassed by the German Yannick Hanfmann, who won by 6 -4, 3-6 and 6-2.
The fifth player in the world will go to Wimbledon without excessive baggage on grass in 2023. Not even with good feelings. In Stuttgart he lost in the first round, beaten by the French Richard Gasquet and in Halle, he did not go beyond the second leg. He beat the Frenchman Gregoire Barrere but lost in the next match against the Chilean Nicolás Jarry.
Nor did he progress in Mallorca beaten by Hanfmann, 48 in the ATP ranking, which he had won in 2017, also on grass, at Wimbledon.
He was clearly surpassed by the German Stefanos Tsitsipas who since Roland Garros has only won one game and has conceded three defeats in the three recent tournaments he has played.
Yannick Hanfmann will be Feliciano López’s rival in the quarterfinals.
Previously, they ensured their presence among the eight best, the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech who beat his compatriot Constant Lestienne (6-3 and 6-2) and will play against the American Christopher Eubanks who traced back his countryman Ben Shelton 6-7(4 ), 6-4 and 7-6 (2).
