Internazionali d'Italia, Francesco Passaro in the second round

Francesco Passaro, world number 101 and entered the draw thanks to a wild card, in the first round of the Internazionali d’Italia on clay at the Foro Italico in Rome beat Taiwan’s Chun Hsin Tseng, number 103 and passed through the qualifiers, with a score of 6-0 2-6 6-3 in almost two hours of play.

Passaro’s dominance in the first set, in which only the fifth game is hard-fought, when Tseng has the only ball to win a game that is also a break ball.

The match completely reverses in the second set, in which the Taiwanese flies 4-0 but also has to cancel as many as six balls for a counter break, two at 3-0, one at 4-1, and three consecutive when he serves at 5-2 to stretch the match.

Passaro nullifies a break point in the first game of the third set but then on 2-1 he operates the decisive extension, saves another break point on 4-2 but is never taken back. The 24-year-old from Perugia will now meet Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, the number 14 seed.