"I'm really happy to have entered the 'top-100'. It was always my dream to enter the famous top 100, but now I look ahead and try to go even further", confessed the player, that virtually occupies the 92nd position.

The Portuguese number two, who is only 25 years old was twice in advantage against the Chinese Yibing Wu (174th ATP), but he lost by 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 4-6 and 4-6, in a match that took three hours and 46 minutes.

"It's not always easier to lose like that. It was very hard to lose the encounter after fighting so hard. I felt I should have won and I had what I needed to win. That's just the way tennis is. I look back and I just have to be happy to have got here and I still have more opportunities in doubles with Francisco [Cabral]," he said.

Besides underlining that "nothing was missing" to win the singles, "it was just a point or two that made the difference, sometimes a ball on the line can change everything", Nuno Borges affirms that he is fully focused on the second round of doubles, alongside his friend Francisco Cabral.

"Now I am focused on the doubles. We are ready for the second round. We will do the preparation as usual, keeping a routine is important", he added.

After the triumph in the opening round of the last 'major' of the season against the Colombian Nicolas Barrientos (68th doubles) and the Mexican Miguel Ángel Reyes Varela (67th), by 6-4 and 6-2, Borges and Cabral, Estoril Open champions, will now face the German Tim Puetz and the New Zealander Michael Venus in the second round.