The sixth and seventh seeds are out. Franco Stupaczuk and Miguel Yanguas, ranked 6 and 7 in the world, fell in straight sets to Jerónimo González and Lucas Campagnolo in the round of 16 — the headline result on a Saturday that punished the favourites. By day's end both draws had shed a top-tier contender.
Jerónimo González / Lucas Campagnolo 6-4, 7-6 Franco Stupaczuk / Miguel Yanguas
The ranking gap was the story. González and Campagnolo, ranked 14th and 21st, took down a pairing seeded 6 and 7 — and they did it without dropping a set. For a Stupaczuk side expected to anchor this quarter of the draw, it is a costly afternoon.
The favourites never settle. Campagnolo's serve and González's work at net keep Stupaczuk and Yanguas pinned through the first set, and although the second tightens to a tiebreak, the breaker goes the underdogs' way. A 7-6 second set seals a clean straight-sets exit.
It is the most significant scalp of the day. A top-seven pairing surrenders ranking points it can ill afford to lose, and a section of the men's draw opens up for the survivors below them.
Nuria Rodríguez / Giulia Dal Pozzo 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 Carolina Orsi / Patricia Llaguno
Home interest Giulia Dal Pozzo and Nuria Rodríguez take the opener 6-4, then are handed a 6-0 bagel in the second. The match looks set to slip away. It does not.
The decider goes the distance. Dal Pozzo and Rodríguez hold their nerve through a third-set tiebreak to win 7-6, riding out the momentum swing that had threatened to end their run before it started. A draining survival — and, as it turned out, only half their day.
Nuria Rodríguez / Giulia Dal Pozzo 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 Sofía Araújo / Claudia Fernández
Then they did it again. Hours after surviving the bagel, Dal Pozzo and Rodríguez knocked out the No. 6 and No. 8-ranked Sofía Araújo and Claudia Fernández — one of the most fancied pairings in this half — to reach the semifinals. With Dal Pozzo ranked 50th, the seeding board offered no warning of this.
Araújo and Fernández take the first set 6-3 and look in control. From there the match flips. Dal Pozzo and Rodríguez run the second 6-3 and pull clear 6-2 in the third, a second straight three-set win on the same day.
It caps a remarkable double for the unseeded pair. Dal Pozzo, the local hope, carries Italian interest into the last four, and the women's draw loses another contender.
Arturo Coello / Agustín Tapia 6-1, 6-1 David Gala / Enzo Jensen Sirvent
No drama at the top. The world No. 1 pairing of Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia drop just two games in a 6-1, 6-1 dismissal of David Gala and Enzo Jensen Sirvent, the kind of routine that keeps the favourites' tag firmly intact and moves them into the quarterfinals at minimal cost.
Gemma Triay / Delfina Brea 6-1, 6-1 Patricia Martínez Fortún / Claudia Escacena
The women's top seeds match their male counterparts game for game. Gemma Triay and Delfina Brea concede just two games in a 6-1, 6-1 win over Patricia Martínez Fortún and Claudia Escacena, untroubled into the last eight.
With Stupaczuk and Yanguas gone and the seeds tumbling, the favourites who survived — Coello and Tapia, Triay and Brea — look ominous heading into the quarterfinals. But the story to follow is Dal Pozzo and Rodríguez, who have turned an unlikely run into a semifinal berth nobody on the seeding sheet predicted.