Milos Raonic maintained his winning start on the clay on Wednesday, striking a staggering 39 winners against Tommy Haas to move into the third round 6-4, 6-3 at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. The most impressive part about Raonic's 75-minute win: only 10 of those winners were aces, and 25 were from his forehand. The fifth-seed Canadian reached the third round last week at the Mutua Madrid Open (l. to Goffin) and made the final during his return to the red dirt at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open (l. Cilic) earlier this month. Raonic will next meet 12th seed Tomas Berdych. The Canadian leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 4-2 but Berdych won their only meeting on clay,...
Seventh seed Kei Nishikori overcame fellow baseliner David Ferrer for the second time in as many weeks on Wednesday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Nishikori showed few signs of the right wrist pain that had forced his withdrawal from last week’s Mutua Madrid Open in a 7-5, 6-2 second-round victory over 2010 finalist Ferrer, who is just one of 13 players in ATP World Tour history to record 700 match wins. "I felt pretty good," admitted Nishikori. "It was a little bit different condition-wise from last week and here, so I had to make some adjustments. In the match there were many ups and downs, especially in the first set, but I think overall I played a pretty good match."...
Fabio Fognini will remember this one. In front of a packed Campo Centrale, the Italian No. 1 played one of the best matches of his career, blasting 23 forehand winners to upset World No. 1 and defending champion Andy Murray 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday during Murray's Internazionali BNL d'Italia opener in Rome. Fognini becomes the first Italian to beat a World No. 1 since Filippo Volandri in 2007. Volandri defeated Roger Federer 6-2, 6-4 in the third round, also in Rome. Since then Italians had lost 22 in a row vs. World No. 1s. Watch Live On TennisTV Watch Full Match Replays Murray, who didn't drop a set in Rome last year, becomes the first defending champion to lose in...
It is a mark of an elite player to win, without playing well. Ninth seed David Goffin, who continues to shine on the ATP World Tour in 2017, did just that in a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over the experienced Fernando Verdasco on Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Although Goffin broke for a 2-0 lead, the Belgian then lost six of the next seven games against the 2010 Rome semi-finalist, before taking control for his 29th match win of an impressive season. Goffin, runner-up in Sofia (l. to Dimitrov) and Rotterdam (l. to Tsonga) in February, will now await sixth seed Marin Cilic, who dropped only seven points on his first serve (28/35) to beat American Ryan Harrison 6-3,...
Four-time champion Novak Djokovic persisted past a confident clay-court player on Tuesday during his Internazionali BNL d'Italia opener, beating British qualifier Aljaz Bedene 7-6(2), 6-2 on Campo Centrale in Rome. Djokovic is coming off his best result at an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament this season, a semi-final run at the Mutua Madrid Open last week (l. to eventual champion Nadal). But the World No. 2 had to overcome some early rust against Bedene, who has enjoyed his best stretch on clay during recent months, including a final run at the inaugural Gazprom Hungarian Open in Budapest last month. Watch Live On TennisTV Watch Full Match Replays The Serbian was broken at the start of the match, but quickly...