Lorenzo Sonego and Fabio Fognini immediately eliminated in Stuttgart

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Bitter results for Italian tennis in the Stuttgart ATP 250, one of the tournaments that opened the season on grass. After Matteo Arnaldi’s debut knockout to Jan-Lennard Struff, Lorenzo Sonego and Fabio Fognini were also eliminated in the first round of the ‘Boss Open’.

The Piedmontese tennis player, number 45 in the ATP rankings, lost a 2-hour, 40-minute battle to Frenchman Quentin Halys, world number 47, who won on a comeback with a final score of 6-7 7-5 6-4.

After a very tight first set, won by Sonego at the tie-break 8-6, it cost the Italian dearly for two lapses at the end of the second partial and at the beginning of the third.

The Frenchman, in fact, broke the Turinese in the 11th game of the second set (6-5) before closing out the partial on serve. In the third to make the difference was a single break snatched by Halys in the opening game and preserved until the final 6-4.

In contrast, the Ligurian tennis player, who has now dropped out of the top 100 (he is currently at position number 117 in the ATP ranking), surrendered in three sets to another Frenchman: Corentin Moutet, world number 91, who beat him 6-4 6-7 6-3.

After a first set decided by a single break, Fognini fought back in the second set, won at tie-break 7-3, but then paid dearly for a bad free error with the forehand in the eighth game of the third set with which he gave up the serve to the Frenchman (3-5) who took the match (6-3).

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