Former Stuttgart Open champion Matteo Berrettini continued his comeback with another solid performance and win at the ATP 250 tournament.
The Italian faced Denis Shapovalov, a player he failed to beat in their two previous matches, but he finally got the win in the German city, where he had a lot of success in the past, and he’s been doing really well to replicate that success also this year.
Berrettini excels with his skills on grass, and plenty of that was on display as well. Shapovalov is pretty solid on the green surface as well, but he lacks consistency. At times, the Canadian today looked amazing, but then he had one game where things went south, and he never recovered.
Such was the opening set, where Shapovalov even had the first break points but failed to convert it. As the match progressed, Berrettini looked more and more consistent and eventually got a chance to break and broke his opponent’s serve.
The Italian didn’t produce a sensational serving performance in the sense that he didn’t hit many aces, but he created enough pressure to cruise through most of his games.
He was solid in the rallies, making far fewer mistakes than his opponent, which was crucial as well. After taking the opening set 6-4, Berrettini kept doing what was working and broke Shapovalov once more in the second set.
From there, it was a rather simple cruise to the finish line, with the final score being 6-4, 6-4 for the former Wimbledon finalist. It’s been a good week in Stuttgart for Berrettini so far, though that previous match was all sorts of complicated.
He looked much more at ease in this match and was able to get the win to secure the quarter-final. Having won here in the past is certainly a boost for the Italian, who will now look to take on the winner of the match between the second-seeded Ben Shelton and James Duckworth.
