Albert Ramos-Vinolas is champion of the sixth edition of the Millennium Estoril Open. The 33-year-old Spaniard defeated Britain’s Cameron Norrie, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3) and joins five previous winners of Portugal’s biggest tennis event; Richard Gasquet (2015), Nicolas Almagro (2016), Pablo Carreño-Busta (2017), João Sousa (2018) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (2019).
The ‘JomaPlayer’ stated, “It means a lot now that I won three tournaments in my career, so this is one of the best three weeks of my career. I’m really happy. And especially today, it was a really tough match against Cameron, and I think he played a really good tournament. I’m happy for me, but he’s a good friend of mine and I feel bad for him because I think he deserved to win too,” said 33-year-old Albert from Barcelona.
The two-hour, 45-minute final between the two left-handed players was the closest in the tournament’s history, with Norrie leading 3-1 in the third-set tie-break, just four points away from lifting his first ATP Tour singles trophy, after having won three years ago in Estoril in doubles with partner Kyle Edmund by his side. But in the match they played against one another on Sunday, May 3, 2021, was another story.
Ramos arrived to Portugal a week ago as the player with the most wins on clay this year (11) and at the end of the tournament, the Catalan left the Clube de Tenis do Estoril having extended his dominance to 16 wins.
“To be honest, I don’t like numbers. I don’t want to think about how many matches I won or what I’m doing because on Tuesday I have another one. I have to enjoy this tournament today. I know how hard it is to win a tournament. I know how hard it is to be consistent week after week. I can only tell you that I am very happy and I want to enjoy this moment.” said Ramos-Vinolas right after his third ATP title.