Matteo Berrettini dreams in Gstaad, then collapses: tournament goes to Casper Ruud

First the dream, then the great disappointment in Gstaad.

Matteo Berrettini loses to Casper Ruud a final he had dominated in the first part, but in which the Norwegian manages to gain the upper hand minute after minute. It ends 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2, with the Roman tennis player missing the hat trick: after Stuttgart and Queen’s, the Atp 250 in Gstaad would have been his third consecutive trophy in this category.

In more than two and a half hours of the match we can see Berrettini’s difficulties, more on stamina than technical level. Recovering from his absence from Wimbledon due to Covid, the Italian managed to control his rival, No. 5 on the ATP circuit, fairly easily during the first set. Things got going well when he snatched his serve in the fifth game, cancelling three times the ball of a possible counterbreak in the next game.

More complicated was the second set, whose missed break came when Ruud prevented Berrettini’s further break by taking a 2-1 lead. There are no further jolts until the tie-break, where the Scandinavian quickly takes a 5-1 lead that is no longer recoverable. In the third and decisive set, fatigue then becomes decisive, with Berrettini holding on only in the first game (nullifying three break points), but then finding himself down again 5-1. This time, however, in the game count. It was the right stretch for the Norwegian, who in just over three quarters of an hour closed the score.