Ugo Carabelli, beaten in the semi-finals at Rio: "The best week of my career".

One of the pleasant surprises of the ATP 500 tournament in Rio was Camilo Ugo Carabelli.

The Argentinian player, beaten in the last round of qualifying by Tomas Barrios Vera (14-12 in the tie-break of the third set after 3h10 of play), was drafted in and ended up reaching his first semi-final on the ATP circuit in Brazil.

After eliminating Pedro Martinez (4-6, 6-3, 6-3), Damir Dzumhur (6-4, 6-4) and another lucky loser Jaime Faria (7-6, 6-4) in the quarter-finals, the 25-year-old came up against Sebastian Baez (3-6, 6-1, 6-1) in the last four.

An excellent performance which, on Monday February 24, took him to the highest ranking of his career at 67th place, having never before broken into the top 80.

Speaking to the Rio Open media, Ugo Carabelli reflected on his week: "It was the best week of my career so far.

My family from Florianopolis came to see me play. I'm just sorry I couldn't win for them.

I never imagined I'd play a semi-final in an ATP 500, and I guess I wasn't at my best mentally. I haven't slept very well the last two nights.

I was waking up late, which meant I had to take naps before matches. Today, the mental load was perhaps too great, and I don't think I was ready for all that.

But I'm confident that things will get better with time," assures Ugo Carabelli, who has entered the Santiago tournament and will face Nicolas Jarry in the first round in Chile.