As announced in the official presentation of the tournament, Gastão Elias was the first player awarded with a wildcard for the main draw of Millennium Estoril Open 2016. This Thursday, April 14th, the tournament organization gave the second invitation to Frederico Ferreira Silva, the only portuguese player to have Grand Slam titles in his resumé.
Ranked 118 in the world, Gastão Elias reached his third ATP quarter-finals this season, in São Paulo, Brazil, and is still looking for a place among the best 100 players in the world. Last year, he lost in the opening round of the inaugural Millennium Estoril Open, but in 2013 and 2014 he played the quarter-finals in Oeiras, where the Portugal Open was held for 25 years.
Frederico Ferreira Silva was born in 1995 (21 years old) and is ranked 257 in the world. Last week, he reached a career high of 253 and was part of the Portuguese team that faced Austria in March. His first ATP main draw happended in Estoril a year ago, when he lost to Gilles Muller in three sets, 6-3 3-6 6-1.
The tournament organization announced this Thursday that he would be the second player to receive a main draw for the tournament, just a couple weeks after tournament director João Zilhão said “the only way wildcards won’t go all to Portuguese players is if we can bring a ‘big’ player, one that adds a great value to the tournament.”
Earlier this week, Juan Martin del Potro announced he would start his clay season in Munich after being linked by the Portuguese media to the tournament in Estoril.
