Quick and clear: A busy Sunday at the Italian Open

Saturday’s rain disrupted the tournament schedule in Rome. Sunday therefore brought matches of six players from the highest levels of the ATP rankings. Novak Djokovic and local star Jannik Sinner were also in action.

Among the first players from the top of the current tennis world to take the court on Sunday was Holger Rune. Compared to the first round, when he easily got past Frenchman Fils, he was facing a bigger challenge on Sunday. The home tennis player Fabio Fognini, who already has two valuable scalps here. He’s gone past Britain’s Murray and Serbia’s Kecmanovic, the 37th-ranked player.

Holger Rune was too much for the 35-year-old Italian. From the break at 2::1 Rune dominated the match, never lost his serve and after winning 6::4, 6::2 he became one of the first eight finalists of the Italian Open.

Daniil Medvedev, the current world number three, is looking to repair his reputation in Rome. At the Madrid Masters, he said goodbye in the eighth round, a disappointing result for him. Against Ruusuvuori of Finland, he entered the duel as the favourite.

But for a while, it looked the other way around on the court. The Russian lost his serve and was already down 0:3 in the first set. However, he proved his qualities in the rest of the match and advanced after 6: 4, 6: 2.

Novak Djokovic

The most watched tennis player on the courts on Sunday was Novak Djokovic. His form after his elbow problems is a big question mark and the tournament in Rome will clearly give a clue as to how much to expect from him at the French Open, where he can reach historic milestones.

The Serbian tennis player beat his opponent on Sunday, Bulgarian Dimitrov, at the Australian Open this year. He didn’t even allow him a set there.

Dimitrov has already won a set in this encounter, the second one. In the third set, Djokovic started well and soon took the Bulgarian tennis player’s serve twice. The Serbian tennis player was more successful especially in the longer exchanges and the match was heading towards the inevitable.

Djokovic won 6:1 and will play the eighth round. As usual, I might add. Over the last year, the Belgrade native has always advanced to this stage of tennis events at least.

Ruud and Tsitsipas

Norwegian Ruud is eager to return to more convincing performances. Especially on clay. His last two performances in Rome ended in the semi-finals. On Sunday, he met Kazakhstan’s Bublik. He’s beaten him in four of their five matches.

The first set was a clear-cut affair for Nora, winning it 6-1. In the second set, the Kazakh was a ball away from breaking at 5: 3, but Ruud took the initiative and held the important game. Two games later the same situation came and the Kazakh was happy. The sets were tied.

At that moment Bublik was a very troublesome opponent, he changed the pace of the game, he was not afraid to attack and served very well. However, the deciding set did not bring a single break point and in the shortened game Casper Ruud’s strongest weapon – the reliability of his shots – decided the match. Bublik didn’t win a point in the tiebreak and is finished in Rome.

Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece defends his place in the final in the Italian capital. Last year, he lost to Djokovic in the last match of the tennis event. Now he has only to finish his duel with Portugal’s Borges. On Saturday, the score of this match was 6:3, 4:3 for the Greek favourite.

Sunday’s match was a matter of minutes. The Greek took the shortest way to advance, finishing with a break for 6::3.

The home star’s match

The match of home tennis player Jannik Sinner was on the agenda for the evening. The Italian was looking to build on an excellent match in which he had a great first serve and got past Kokkinakis smoothly.

His opponent was the 22-year-old Russian Shevchenko. The latter had knocked Jiri Lehecka out of the Madrid event two weeks ago and thus reached his career high at the Masters by advancing to the third round.

The Italian dropped both the first and second sets early on, but while he managed a reversal in the first set, he didn’t in the second. Not much was missing. But the Russian pushed him back with aggressive play in the second set tiebreak.

In the decider, the home player had more of the game, especially in the longer exchanges. He deservedly won it 6:2 and is one win short of equalling his previous best at home in Rome.

Source: ATP