If Mate Pavic rises to No. 1 in the ATP Doubles Rankings on Monday he will potentially look back on his hard-fought second-round win with Oliver Marach at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia as a critical moment. Pavic and Marach, one of the ATP World Tour’s strongest teams this season, saved three match points in a 30-point Match tie-break to beat Steve Johnson and Dominic Thiem 0-6, 6-3, 16-14 in 79 minutes for a place in the Rome quarter-finals. The duo had won just 14 points in the first set. Johnson and Thiem could not convert three match point chances at 9/8, 11/10 and 13/12 in a tense finale, which saw Pavic and Marach close out their third opportunity to improve...
His service-holds streak was snapped but Alexander Zverev stretched his most important markers on Thursday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. The second seed and defending champion advanced to his fourth ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final of the season, beating top Brit Kyle Edmund 7-5, 7-6(11) in front of a capacity crowd on Court Pietrangeli. Zverev, who has now won 22 consecutive sets and 11 straight matches, improved to 3-0 in his FedEx ATP Head2Head series with Edmund, who had reached his maiden Masters 1000 quarter-final last week at the Mutua Madrid Open on clay and celebrated his debut inside the Top 20 of the ATP Rankings (No. 19). But the German did just enough to return to the...
After reaching this year's Australian Open final, Marin Cilic struggled to find his best form, reaching one quarter-final in five events. But it appears that the World No. 5 is poised for a run at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia. Cilic overcame an early break in the second set to oust Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4 in 87 minutes on Thursday, reaching the quarter-finals in Rome for the third time and for the second consecutive year. "Benoit is an extremely difficult player to play. Never know what to expect from him," Cilic said. "I'm really happy with the way I was playing and hitting the ball." The Croatian still seeks his first tour-level title of the season, which would give him...
Rafael Nadal continued his quest for an eighth Internazionali BNL d’Italia crown, which will help him to regain No. 1 in the ATP Rankings, on Thursday with victory over #NextGenATP Canadian star Denis Shapovalov. Top seed Nadal recorded the 20th match win of the year (20-2) with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Shapovalov, who will become the Canadian No. 1 on Monday after his run to the Rome third round. “It was a solid match for me,” said Nadal, who lost just five of his service points. “I started with some mistakes on the return. But with my serve, I didn't lose many points. At the beginning, I really think that he was serving big. I got the break in...
Defending champion Alexander Zverev stayed focused and avoided a potentially dangerous matchup during his Rome opener on Wednesday night against home favourite Matteo Berrettini. [ALSO LIKE] Zverev beat the 21-year-old Italian 7-5, 6-3 on Court Centrale for his 10th consecutive win, a streak that includes back-to-back title runs at the BMW Open by FWU in Munich and the Mutua Madrid Open, Zverev's third ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title (d. Thiem). The 21-year-old German won his 20th consecutive set on clay and improved to 14-2 on the surface this year. “It's not easy to come from Madrid, where there's a lot of altitude, it's very fast, to here. So, I only had basically one day. And for that, I thought...
