Nuno Borges, the number one in Portuguese tennis, started the new tennis season on the right foot by beating Bosnian Damir Dzumhur in two splits, in the first round of the Hong Kong Open. The player from Maia, 47th in the ATP rankings, started the match better, which opened the main tournament in the Chinese region, by breaking the serve of Dzumhur, number 66 in the world, in the first game. The 33-year-old Bosnian still managed to break Borges' service game, but the 28-year-old Portuguese responded immediately, maintaining the advantage he reached to win the first end by 6-4. Dzumhur still won the first game of the second set, but Borges took advantage of a more consistent and faster service - at around 200 kilometers per hour - and the opponent's many mistakes to win four games in a row and close the match 6-3, in one hour and 15 minutes. In the round of 16, Borges will face the winner of the meeting between two 37-year-old veterans: Croatian Marin Cilic, 70th in the world and winner of the United States Open in 2014, and Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, number 68 in the rankings. Borges is the eighth seed in the Hong Kong tournament, which also serves as preparation for the Australian Open - one of the four Grand Slams, the main tournaments in world tennis - which starts on January 12th. In the 2025 season, the maiato beat, for the first time in his career, a top 10 player, world number eight, Norwegian Casper Ruud, in the second round of Roland Garros, in May. Borges also reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, in January 2025, and the United States Open, in August, and was also the first Portuguese to reach the round of 16 of the Masters 1,000 in Shanghai, China, in October.