Three Italians in Wimbledon round of 16: Lorenzo Sonego qualifies after a five-hour marathon

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Storical success for Lorenzo Sonego: in a Wimbledon men’s singles third-round match that lasted 5 hours and 4 minutes, the 30-year-old from Turin defeated Brandon Nakashima of the United States with a score of 6-7 7-6 7-6 3-6 7-6.

Sonego is the third Italian to qualify for the round of 16 at the Championships after Flavio Cobolli and Jannik Sinner: it had never happened for Italy that three came in the same edition among the best sixteen on London’s Church Road grass.

No one lost serve in the first set, only Sonego saved break points, two, in the 11th game, and the tie-break was won by Nakashima 7-5. Same movie in the second set but with a different ending: Sonego saves another break ball in the sixth game, Nakashima three consecutive in the ninth.

It seemed that the second tie-break could also be won by the U.S. He has as many as five set points, four consecutive at 6-2 and a fifth at 7-6, Sonego cancels them and in the end it is he who wins the tie-break 10-8 after missing a first set point at 8-7.

Sonny loses his serve for the first time at 1-1 in the third set, misses two counterbreak balls and saves two consecutive 1-4 balls, then in the eighth game finally makes the counterbreak and this time he dominates the tie-break 7-2 taking the lead two sets to one.

The fourth partial is decided with the break in favor of Nakashima in the sixth game. Deciding set: Lorenzo once again goes down by a break in the fifth game, immediately recovers it, saves two break points at 5-5 and finally dominates the super tie-break 10-3.

Sonego’s next opponent will be the other U.S. player Ben Shelton, who like Sinner and Cobolli has not lost a single set so far and in his last match beat Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.

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