In Umag Matteo Arnaldi and Lorenzo Sonego stop in semifinals

In Umag Matteo Arnaldi and Lorenzo Sonego stop in semifinals

Matteo Arnaldi and Lorenzo Sonego stopped at the most beautiful moment on the Croatian clay in Umag. In the first semifinal Arnaldi was beaten with a score of 6-7 7-5 6-3 by Australian Alexei Popyrin, in the second Lorenzo Sonego succumbed 6-3 6-4 to ATP circuit veteran Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland.

Four breaks in the first set between Arnaldi and Popyrin, in the first, second, seventh and eighth games and it was always the Russian-born “kangaroo” who did it first only to be taken back immediately. It goes to the tie-break that Arnaldi easily wins 7-2 without losing a point on his own serve.

A single break decides the second set, the one in the 12th game, but Popyrin has as many as four set points as early as 5-4 to close it out but does not take advantage of them. We go to the third, The 22-year-old Ligurian from San Remo is tired and suffers the decisive break, moreover at zero, in the fourth game of the last partial.

Much more linear was the semifinal between Wawrinka and Sonego, with only one break per set in favor of the 38-year-old winner of three Grand Slam tournaments, in the eighth game of the first set and in the seventh game of the second. The Swiss returns to the final in Umag 17 years after winning it: it was his first success on the ATP major circuit and in the final he benefited from the withdrawal of a certain Novak Djokovic at 6-6 in the first set.