United Cup, Italy gets off on the right foot
Jasmine Paolini beats Angelique Kerber: Italy-Germany 1-0
Italy's path in the United Cup, the tournament for national teams that effectively inaugurates the 2024 season a few days ahead of the New Year, begins with a fine victory: in the first of the challenges pitting the representatives of Italy against those of Germany, Jasmine Paolini beat Angelique Kerber, a veteran of the professional circuit, two sets to zero.
It was not an easy match for the Castelnuovo di Garfagnana-born athlete, who even found herself down 1-3 in the first set but then managed to regain her concentration by winning five of the next six games, three of them on her opponent’s serve. In the second set, the trend was opposite, with Paolini able to go ahead 3-1 before a 0-4 partial set that seemed to address the set, but thanks to a 4-0 counter-partial the Italian player managed to win: 6-4, 7-5, then, the final result.
The day’s United Cup program includes a women’s singles match, a men’s singles match and a mixed doubles match: there is great expectation in this regard for the men’s singles, with Lorenzo Sonego engaged against Sascha Zverev, an opponent whom in his two previous matches on the ATP circuit the Piedmontese player has never managed to beat.
This year's is the second edition of the United Cup, a tournament included in the calendar to replace the ATP Cup: Italy managed to reach the final in the edition that ended in the first days of 2023, finding forò defeat against the United States, which was able to impose itself in all four direct clashes played.
