The Hammer wins the marathon against the former top 10, thanks also to 16 aces. Four other Italians on the field: Arnaldi-Zverev, Sinner-Cobolli, Etcheverry-Musetti
Vienna is tinged with blue: on this day, four out of six matches feature at least one Italian tennis player. The first to take the field is Matteo Berrettini, who in the round of 16 of the ATP 500 beats Cameron Norrie with a score of 7-6(6) (9)6-7 6-4, after a tiring marathon lasting three hours and 16 minutes. So the Roman, seven months after the last time, finds himself in the quarter-finals of a tournament: Alex De Minaur is waiting for him. After Medvedev-Moutet, Matteo Arnaldi will take to the field, challenging world number three Alexander Zverev.
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The twelve victories out of sixteen on hard courts say a lot about Matteo Berrettini’s season. Even against Cameron Norrie, former top 10 and tricky left-handed player, the main weapon for him is the serve and above all avoiding long rallies to emerge victorious from a tough battle. When the first misses and the duration of the games becomes longer, the first break of the match arrives in favor of Norrie. It takes a great reaction from Matteo to cancel four double break opportunities at 4-1, recover the deficit, take the match to a tie-break and win the first set. The tug-of-war persists in the second, but the English tennis player is the only one forced to save a break point in the second game. Therefore, another tie-break is needed to determine the fate of this match. Lots of errors from both, but Norrie manages to cancel a match point and take the match to the third. Forced for the third time in his career (in best-of-three-set tournaments) to go beyond three hours of play, Berrettini makes his last effort: at 4-4 he risks an invasion on the break point, but manages to break serve. With a total of 16 aces scored, he reaches the quarterfinals for the fourth time in the season after Doha, Dubai and Miami and dreams of returning to the semifinals in Vienna, which he has missed since 2019.
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