Main draw action kicked off on Sunday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, with home favourite Fabio Fognini among the four players moving into the second round.
Fognini needed just 70 minutes to advance past wild card and fellow Italian Matteo Berrettini 6-1, 6-3. His reward is a second-round battle with top seed Andy Murray. The World No. 1 leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 3-2 and has won their past two matches.
John Isner caused the upset of the day by defeating 14th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 6-1. Isner served twice to stay in the match in the second set before breezing through to the win. He’ll next play Florian Mayer or qualifier Thiago Monteiro.
Fernando Verdasco only needed 69 minutes to move past Donald Young 6-3, 6-3, and will likely face in-form ninth seed David Goffin in the next round. Jiri Vesely scored a convincing 6-3, 6-1 win over Daniel Evans. Next up for the Czech player is 13th seed Jack Sock or Diego Schwartzman.
Seven players also qualified for the main draw, including Kevin Anderson, Adrian Mannarino, Nicolas Almagro and Aljaz Bedene. Anderson plays #NextGenATP German Alexander Zverev in the opening round, while Mannarino faces Madrid semi-finalist Pablo Cuevas. Almagro squares off against Andreas Seppi and the winner will take on fourth seed Rafael Nadal. Bedene plays wild card Gianluca Mager and the winner faces second seed Novak Djokovic.
