De la Puente and Caverzaschi break a ceiling and reach the wheelchair tennis semi-finals

Martín de la Puente and Dani Caverzaschi qualified on Tuesday for the medal fight in the wheelchair tennis doubles draw at the Paris Paralympic Games, becoming the first Spaniards to reach the semi-finals of this event. The Galician and the Madrid native, fifth seeds, won a hard-fought match against the Dutch pair formed by Tom Egberink, the latter’s executioner in the singles draw, and Maikel Scheffers, whom the Galician had beaten in the round of 16, whom they beat 7-5, 1-6 and 10/3 in the ‘super tie-break’. Things started well for the Spaniards, who broke their rivals’ first serve and took the lead before the start of a stretch of the match where the returns were the order of the day. In the end, the Dutch managed to string together three games in a row to go 5-4 and serve, but De la Puente and Caverzaschi managed to respond after saving four set points. The Galician and the Madrid native took advantage of their moment and ended up taking the set with one more break, but Egberink and Scheffers reacted with a second set in which they were far superior. The ‘super tie-break’ had to decide it and there the national duo was better to seal a historic pass to the semi-finals against the Japanese Takuya Miki and Tokito Oda, second favourites at Roland Garros.