Tennis. In Estoril waiting for the blue derby of the 2nd round between Fognini and Cecchinato

The very long season on clay begins and it will still be the Italian derby in the second round of the Estoril tournament, Atp 250 which is played in Portugal. The first took place today, and Fabio Fognini rather clearly defeated Alessandro Giannessi, coming from the qualifiers, 6-2 6-1, in a match that has never been in discussion. For the 35-year-old Ligurian, former top ten, there will now be the all-blue challenge against the Sicilian Marco Cecchinato in the second round: the semi-finalist of Roland Garros 2018 defeated the Argentine Diego Schwartzman, number 38 in the ranking and seventh head in a very tough match standard. The Palermitan, number 95 in the world, had the better of two sets, 6-3 7-6 (8), at the end of a second eternal set, which lasted an hour and twenty minutes. The 30-year-old, former top 20, thus beat for the second time in his career (the other in the final of the ATP in Buenos Aires in 2019) the Argentine of his age, who remains ahead in the previous ones (4-2) and who had defeated him in the last three matches. There have been four precedents so far between Fognini and Cecchinato: the Ligurian won on three occasions, including the last one last year in Belgrade. The only success of the tennis player from Palermo dates back to the 2018 Munich tournament.

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In Marrakech Francesco Passaro passed the first round. The blue tennis player, number 115 in the ranking, surpassed the Russian Aslan Karatsev, number 124 Atp (but number 14 only a little over a year ago), by 7-5 3-6 6-3. Immediately a surprise on the first day of the Challenge Open. The ATP challenger from Barletta immediately loses the number 1 seed. The Russian Alexander Shevchenko, in fact, was eliminated in the opening match by the Argentine Juan Bautista Torres: three hard-fought sets and finished 6-3, 5-7, 6 -4 for South American. The Italians are still in the light, with Franco Agamenone and Matteo Gigante who pass the first round of the main draw. Agamenone, seeded number 3, gets rid of the Austrian James Mccabe (6-0, 6-1) in two sets, while Gigante must reach the third set (3-6, 6-1, 7-6) to have the better of the Serbian Miljan Zekic, finalist of the last edition. The wild card Gianluca Mager, past winner of the tournament in Barletta, didn’t make it: stop with the French Laurent Lokoli, number 6 of the seeding, for 7-6, 6-3. Nothing to do also for the other Italian Federico Arnaboldi, who surrendered to the Japanese Shintaro Mochizuki 6-2 6-3.