Matteo Berrettini did not get an easy welcome back to action on Tuesday in his first match since Wimbledon, but the fifth seed found a way to reach the third round at the Western & Southern Open.
The Italian star rallied past Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-5 after two hours and 20 minutes to advance in Cincinnati. The 25-year-old had not played since the final of The Championships due to a thigh injury.
“I’m happy for the win. I think I served really well. My strokes from the baseline weren’t working the way I wanted them to, but I knew from the beginning it’s been a long time since I played a match, especially on hard, so I expected to feel a little bit weird,” Berrettini said. “But the most important thing was I was there, I fought every point, I tried to put myself in conditions where I could win the match. That’s what I’m most happy about.”
Berrettini has now won 15 of his past 17 matches and is 33-7 on the season. This year’s Belgrade and Queen’s Club champion will next play 12th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime, one of his best friends on Tour, or Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Karen Khachanov.
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The players did not begin their clash until just shy of 8 p.m due to more than four hours of rain. Berrettini, a 2019 Nitto ATP Finals competitor, was in trouble against Ramos-Vinolas, who proved a tricky foe for his first match in more than a month.
“Ramos is a player who makes a lot of balls,” Berrettini said. “I saw the stats and I ran more than him, which is pretty weird for my game. But today that’s what I felt I had to do in order to win the match and I’m really happy that I’m going to have the chance to play another match because that’s what I need. I need to play matches. I need to get in the best shape possible.”
The lefty uses heavy spin on his forehand and rarely makes unforced errors, and that seemed to bother Berrettini, who was searching for rhythm. The Italian hit 25 aces in the match to stay in contact and escape difficult service games.
But in the deciding moments of the final set, the script flipped. Berrettini, who is known for his hammer-like forehand, used his backhand slice to force Ramos-Vinolas to play extra balls. And at 5-5 in the third set, the Spaniard made mistakes off those floating shots, missing an inside-out forehand to lose serve.
Berrettini closed out the match in the next game with a forehand drop shot, turning to his team and yelling “Vamos!” to celebrate. It was the World No. 8’s first victory in Cincinnati.
Source Tennis – ATP World Tour
