Matteo Berrettini earned the biggest win of his career on Tuesday, taking out top seed and world No. 2 Alexander Zverev at the Monte-Carlo Masters 2-6 6-3 7-5. The Monaco event is something of a home tournament for Berrettini – it’s close to the Italian border, meaning the crowds are usually on his side, and he has a home here.
But the world No. 34 hasn’t always had great memories of the Masters 1000 event. Two years ago, he was forced to pull out before his third-round match with an abdominal injury. Forced to stay in bed because he couldn’t move, Berrettini could hear the fans from his window nearby.
It was one of the Italian’s toughest blows. The ab issue kept him sidelined for the rest of the clay swing that year. So it’s no surprise that, after earning a statement victory over the No. 1 seed, Berrettini wanted to savour the moment.
“I have this memory of [two] years ago when I got injured here, and the next day I was in bed, because I couldn’t move,” the 28-year-old recalled.
“My ab was really hurting. Every time I was sneezing or coughing, it was really painful.
“They were playing on centre court, and I could hear them, like, from my apartment. It was a tough day. It was a tough day.
“So it was like, now I’m going to enjoy, now I’m going to make them scream for me, and that’s why I also found that kind of energy in the third.”
The fans gave Berrettini the push he needed in the tough moments on Tuesday. The former Wimbledon finalist had a chance to serve for the match but got broken.
Instead of getting down on himself, he won an epic 48-shot rally and ended up breaking again before closing it out. And he credited the fans for keeping him going.
Berrettini added: “It’s so important for us, for all the Italians. I think it’s special. It definitely helped me when, you know, in some moments I also tried to make them even louder. You know, like it gives you energy, especially when you’re tired.
“So definitely thanks to them and thanks to their support and support of my team, it was one of the big reasons why I was able to turn the match around.”
It’s a match that Berrettini may not have been able to win a few years ago, but he’s learned to enjoy the battles.
“I’m really happy, really proud of the way I turned the match around. I wasn’t feeling my best in the first set especially, and I have to say that Sascha was playing a really high-level tennis,” he explained.
“Yeah, so in order to change and switch the momentum around, I really had to push hard, especially mentally, you know, to tell myself to believe in my strokes and to believe in my tennis and just to enjoy the fight.
“That’s what I did and what I kept telling myself, especially in the third set when things were a little bit tricky at the end of it.”
It could be an all-Italian clash in the third round, as Berrettini will face either Jiri Lehecka or his countryman, 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk