A Saturday to remember for Matteo Berrettini and Rafa Nadal
Matteo Berrettini and Rafa Nadal in the finals: the former in Gstaad, the latter in Bastad
It's a Saturday to remember for Matteo Berrettini and Rafa Nadal, two tennis players hit by innumerable physical problems in recent times: the Roman defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas to qualify for the final of the ATP tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland, while the Mallorcan, thanks to his success against Duje Ajdokovic in Bastad, Sweden, returns after two years to the final in an ATP tournament.
Against Tsitsipas, Berrettini confirmed the good things he had shown in his last outings: at the end of a balanced match that lasted one hour and forty-three minutes, the Roman won 7-6(6), 7-5, snatching in the very last game the only break of the entire match (if we exclude those in the tie-break of the first set).
"I really like the conditions of the court here,” Berrettini told the microphones of the organizers of the Gstaad tournament.
I knew that today every break could be the decisive one, I stayed focused until the end and expressed my best tennis at the right time against a very strong player like Stefanos".
In the final Berrettini will faceà the surprise of the tournament, Frenchman Quentin Halys, number 192 ATP coming from the qualifiers and able to beat Jan-Lennard Struff in the semifinals. Berrettini and Halys have met only once, back in 2015, in a youth tournament in Tuscany, with the Frenchman winning in two sets: "I remember it well,” Berrettini said, “the surface was a little bit different, a little bit harder clay. It will be a difficult match, he showed great confidence".
As for Nadal, the success è came in a comeback: in fact, Ajdukovic won the first set with the score of 6-4, but the Mallorcan pressed on the accelerator in the following fractions, winning them 6-3, 6-4 and closing the match in two hours and fourteen minutes, amid the applause of the Swedish audience flocked to see him play.
For Nadal this is the first final since June 5, 2022, the one at Roland Garros: against him was Casper Ruud, who però could not resist the overwhelming power of the Manacor-born champion, who was able to impose himself 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 thus conquering his fourteenth title on the Paris clay.
