Daniel Mérida, a 21-year-old from Madrid who until this season had not achieved his first victories in elite tennis, sealed his first Masters 1000 win this afternoon. The Club de Tenis Chamartín player defeated Argentine Marco Trungelliti (6-4, 1-6 and 7-6(6), 2h 41m) in the first round in Madrid, a 36-year-old veteran who currently occupies the 77th position in the ranking and whom he had already beaten two days earlier in the qualifying round but had later been reprieved due to withdrawals.
Read more Camello unleashes madness in Vallecas and Espanyol is still winless in 2026
The clash between Trungelliti and Mérida was very emotional. The Spaniard, with a very powerful forehand, came back from two match points in the third set to force a tie-break, where he finally prevailed. “What I tried to do was fight until the end, contest every last ball, and that’s why I won the match,” he said later in the press room. In the next round, he will face Frenchman Corentin Moutet (30th) on Saturday, a hot-blooded player as anarchic as he is imaginative.
The crowd’s attitude on Court Three of the Caja Mágica even led the Argentine to threaten to withdraw due to the chants, the noise of a horn, and the whistles and insults from several fans. The player from Santiago del Estero, a province in northern Argentina, spoke with the chair umpire on several occasions to ask him to restore order, stop the noise, and notify security agents. “Obviously, we experienced a somewhat special atmosphere; tennis matches are not usually so on the edge. There was a moment when the match stopped because someone said something to him and he heard it, but I don’t know what they said,” Mérida recounted later, who is virtually already in the ATP circuit’s top-100.
The Madrid native reached his first professional tennis final this year. He did so in early April in Bucharest, a 250 tournament —the fourth category of tournaments—, when he fell in three sets to fellow Argentine Mariano Navone.
Read more Milei closes the Casa Rosada to accredited press amid corruption scandals
Mérida’s tennis still needs to evolve, but the Madrid native has good shots on both his forehand and backhand, as well as doses of imagination and a defense like the one that frustrated Trungelliti in the final stretch of yesterday’s match. “It’s a dream to be in the top-100 and to have won my first match here at home,” he added.
In addition to Mérida, Pablo Carreño also triumphed this Thursday, defeating Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (4-6, 7-6(5) and 6-2, 2h 29m) and will face Alejandro Davidovich on Saturday. It had been 10 years since the Asturian had won at the Caja Mágica, where he only has two victories. However, Martín Landaluce, Jessica Bouzas, and Kaitlin Quevedo bid farewell to the tournament.
