Different fortunes for the Portuguese tennis players present at the ATP250 in Auckland, New Zealand. Nuno Borges, 46th in the world rankings in singles, lost to the North American Elito Spizzirri, in two sets. Francisco Cabral won together with Austrian Lucas Miedler in the pairs circuit. In a tournament in which he reached the semi-finals in 2025, Maiato, 46th in the world rankings, started the match poorly and ended up losing 2-5 to Spizzirri, 89th in the world and coming from qualifying. But Borges, eighth seed in New Zealand, recovered and, despite the match being suspended for almost an hour due to rain, he took the first half to the tie-break, where the North American was stronger, winning 6-7 (6-8). The second set started more balanced and Spizzirri was the only one to manage to break his opponent's service game, an advantage he managed to maintain to close the match 4-6, after almost an hour and 39 minutes. With Borges' elimination, the only Portuguese still competing in Auckland is Francisco Cabral, who also qualified for the quarter-finals of the men's doubles variant today, with his partner, Austrian Lucas Miedler. The tournament's second seeds beat Brazilians Fernando Romboli and Marcelo Melo, in two parts, 6-4 and 7-6 (7-5 in the 'tie break), in a match that lasted one hour and 23 minutes. In the quarter-finals, Cabral and Miedler will face the duo formed by the Spanish Inigo Cervantes and the Argentine Luciano Darderi, who also today beat the Argentines Tomás Martín Etcheverry and Camilo Ugo Carabelli, by double 6-4. The Auckland tournament serves as preparation for the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the season, the four major tournaments in world tennis. Both the duo composed of Francisco Cabral and Lucas Miedler and Nuno Borges have a guaranteed presence in the main table.