Meligeni and Enqvist Qualify for Sao Paulo Final

Fernando Meligeni and Thomas Enqvist have reached the final of the AOC Grand Champions Brazil after both players recorded their second round robin wins in Sao Paulo on Friday. Enqvist continued his fine debut on the ATP Champions Tour with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Paul Haarhuis. Haarhuis put up a good fight, but in the end Enqvist’s hard, flat groundstrokes were overpowering for the Dutchman. The win puts Envqist in an unassailable lead at the top of group B, meaning that the Swede has qualified to play in his first Tour final on Sunday.

“It’s great news that I’m in the final,” said Enqvist. “It’s been so much fun to be back here playing again and I’ve had so much fun all week.”

On Sunday, Enqvist will meet Brazilian Meligeni, who booked his place in the final with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Gilad Bloom. Although the Israeli continued to play with the serve-and-volley tactics that proved so fruitful on Thursday against Rios, on this occasion Meligeni’s passing shots were too good, and the Brazilian needed only just over an hour to wrap up his second straight sets victory of the tournament so far.

“I’m playing so good, I don’t know what’s happening!” said Meligeni. “Gilad comes to the net a lot and puts a lot of pressure on you, but I think I played good and really returned good so I am very happy. Two matches, two wins, I just have to keep going!”

For Meligeni, reaching the final of his home tournament is a particularly special experience. “It’s good to be in the final in Brazil,” he said. “Sao Paulo is my home city and having all my family here is amazing. The final is going to be good.”

In the first Group A match of the day, Marcelo Rios suffered a second shock defeat of the tournament, this time at the hands on Frenchman Henri Leconte. Rios, who is sporting a newly shaven head this week in Sao Paulo, lost 6-4, 6-3 to Leconte and now stands no chance of reaching Sunday’s final. In Friday’s other Group B match, Sergi Bruguera notched up his first victory of the tournament, beating fellow Spaniard Emilio Sanchez 7-6(2), 6-2. Bruguera will play Haarhuis on Saturday to decide which of the two will play in Sunday’s play-off match for third place.

Matches are played over the best of three sets, with a Champions’ Tie-break (first to 10 points with a clear advantage of two) to decide the winner. After all round-robin matches are complete, the top two players in each group will meet in Sunday's final.

After Sao Paulo, the ATP Champions Tour will move on to Graz for the s Tennis Masters (August 5-9), and later will arrive in the Algarve for the Vale Do Lobo Grand Champions CGD (August 11-14). To view the results, order of play and the round-robin groups, go to Results. For up-to-the-minute scores, go to our Twitter page.