Paris is increasingly colored blue: Flavio overcomes Svayda in four sets and Matteo defeats Cerundolo in three, canceling three set balls for the Argentine
Paris is more and more blue, more and more every day. It almost seems that since the elimination of Jannik Sinner a Italian wind is pushing our boys who are still in the running at Roland Garros. The days pass, the difficulties increase and yet Flavio Cobolli and Matteo Berrettini they know no obstacles, on Sunday in Paris they played and won once again. Yes, they earned a place among the best eight in the most important clay court tournament in the world. With Alcaraz in the pits due to the wrist injury and the unexpected and unpredictable knockouts first of Medvedev and then of Sinner finding the favorite in Paris is an inextricable puzzle, but if in the lower part of the scoreboard it is difficult to find a rival for Aleksander Zverev, in the upper part the Azzurri’s chances increase more and more every day. Above all for the confidence and authority with which Flavio and Matteo won.
Cobolli begins
Flavio was the first to take to the field against the American Zachary Svayda and he always controlled the game even when the opponent tried to reopen it. For the first two sets, when he took command of operations, the 24-year-old Roman relied sometimes on the intensity of the pace, sometimes on the variety of solutions. Victory in four sets 6-2 6-3 6-7(3) 7-6(5) in 3 hours and 15 minutes of gameplay. Now the Italian awaits the winner of the match between the Canadian Auger-Aliassime and the Chilean Tabilo in the quarterfinals, scheduled for Wednesday. Thanks to the points gained today, Flavio has virtually risen to 11th place in the world ranking, his new best ranking. If he were to reach the semi-finals, he would enter the Top 10 (but watch out, from the back, for Jodar, Fonseca and Mensik).
Super caps
Also Matteo Berrettini he played an excellent match against the Argentine Cerundolo who had eliminated Sinner, especially in the first two sets where he made very few mistakes. Then the Roman had an empty pass at 2-2 in the third and had his serve broken. Cerundolo held serve until 5-4, then when he went to serve for the set Berrettini played four perfect shots and put things back on track. But Matteo performed the miracle in the tie-break of the third set when he found himself down 6-3, canceled out three set points for his opponent and then closed 8-6 in his favor in the first match ball, scoring a series of five consecutive points. In the quarter-finals Berrettini will face the winner of the match between us Matteo Arnaldi and the American Francesco Tiafoe.
