Rome, May 5, 2026, 20:02 CEST
Pablo Llamas Ruiz reached the Internazionali BNL d’Italia main draw on Tuesday, while fellow Spaniard Martin Landaluce lost the match that would have put him into the ATP Rome field.
Llamas, who entered qualifying as an alternate, came from a set down to beat Portugal’s Jaime Faria 3-6, 6-2, 6-3. Landaluce, the eighth qualifying seed, was beaten 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 by Italy’s Andrea Pellegrino.
This matters because Rome is not a small tour stop. It is an ATP Masters 1000 event — the highest regular tour level below the Grand Slams — and the clay-court tournament runs from May 6-17 at Foro Italico with Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic among the players listed by the ATP.
For Llamas, the win turns a late qualifying entry into a main-draw place. For Landaluce, it turns a strong start in Rome into a missed chance, at least for now.
The result updates the picture from Monday, when both players stood one win from the draw. Puntodebreak reported that Landaluce beat Australia’s Cristopher O’Connell 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour, 34 minutes, while Llamas rallied past Portugal’s Henrique Rocha 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 after entering as an alternate.
The ATP draw put Llamas against American Ethan Quinn in the first round. Pellegrino, who ended Landaluce’s qualifying run, was placed against Italian wildcard Luca Nardi.
Spain still came out of qualifying with several names through. Daniel Mérida beat Tomas Barrios Vera 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(4), while Pablo Carreño Busta advanced after Stan Wawrinka withdrew before their match, AS reported.
The risk is the usual one around a late-changing tennis draw. Landaluce could still enter only as a lucky loser — a player beaten in qualifying who receives a main-draw spot if another player withdraws — but without that route his Rome singles run is over.
Llamas now gets the cleaner assignment: prepare for Quinn, with a full tour-level match ahead rather than another qualifying scrap. It is still a hard landing. Qualifiers get in, but they rarely get much room.
