Tennis, Indian Wells: Berrettini is in the second round, he suffers but beats Harris

After Jannik Sinner Matteo Berrettini also qualified for the round of 16 in Indian Wells. Matteo beat South African Lluyd Harris 6-4 7-5, nullifying his rival three set points that would have lengthened a game that suddenly became dangerous. Matteo finished with 22 winners and 18 free mistakes, playing not well overall.

Great recovery

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First set dominated by the batting rounds. Neither of them manages to get to the break point then on 4 equal Berrettini pushes harder and breaks his rival’s serve. It’s time to close, Matteo flies to 40-0, wastes the first two set points but closes on the third occasion. The blue, however, is not happy with his tennis. Although he travels at 70% of prime time, often his ball seems to spin slower than that of the South African who remains glued to his rival. In the fourth game of the second set, under 1-2, Matteo flies 30-0, but then he commits a double fault, suffers 4 consecutive points and at the first break point Harris makes the void with a valuable passer-by along the straight line. The South African confirms the advantage gained by climbing quickly to 4-1 at the exact end of the first hour of play. Berrettini tries to react, he takes a good turn to serve for the 2-4 but shows no signs of being able to reverse the course. With a fortuitous lob, the blue hits his rival at 40-40, but Harris pulls two aces out of the hat and climbs 5-2. Matteo also struggles in his turn: a forehand mistake gives the South African two set points: with a second in the middle, Matteo cancels the first chance and then with an anomalous forehand along the line also cancels the second chance. At 5-3 Harris goes to serve for the set, Matteo recovers from 30-0 to 30 all, then grants his rival set point number 3 which Harris is unable to transform. With his back to the wall, Berrettini reacts, changes pace, recovers the break and impacts his rival on 5 all. Now the blue plays a more offensive tennis and with the passer along the line he gets two balls to go and serve for the match. Harris clears the first with a very deep serve and a forehand lunge, but on the second opportunity he puts a long shot from the back. Berrettini’s consecutive games become four and the goal is approaching considerably. The blue top 10 does not tremble, pushes a lot on the backhand diagonal and gets 3 consecutive match points. The first is enough for him and with the 12th ace he closes the contest.

The scoreboard

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If Berrettini beats tomorrow the winner of the match between Miomir Kecmanovic and Botic Van de Zandschulp, he will be the first Italian in history to hit the quarter-finals in Indian Wells. The same feat is also within the reach of Jannik Sinner, committed, again tomorrow, against the Australian Nick Kyrgios.