Masters 1000 Paris-Bercy, Sonego clears first hurdle and gets derby with Musetti
Convincing debut for Lorenzo Sonego in the Paris-Bercy Masters 1000, the last major event of the ATP season before the Finals. The Turin-based tennis player beat 6-2, 6-3 the American Sebastian Korda, at the end of a match that lasted one hour and twenty-nine minutes. In the second round it will be an Italian derby: Sonego’s designated opponent is in fact Lorenzo Musetti.
After a very early study phase, Sonego took the lead with two consecutive breaks in the first set, leaving Korda, behind him by nine positions in the ATP rankings (number 45 the Italian, number 54 the U.S.), with only crumbs. Not much different was the trend in the second fraction, although in this case Korda recovered an early break disadvantage, before capitulating with a partial 0-3.
Two match points were needed, for Sonego, to close out the match, on his opponent’s serve among others. A high-level test, then, for the Turin-born 30-year-old, who thus takes personal revenge after his elimination in the first match from the Basel tournament, which came by losing to Davidovich Fokina, later a finalist defeated by Joao Fonseca.
The 30-year-old, who is also a finalist in the final of the tournament, was the first to be eliminated from the Basel tournament.
Nin 1995, Lorenzo Sonego has won four tournaments on the major circuit, all of them ATP 250s: his first success came in 2019, when the Piedmontese won in Antalya by beating Miomir Kecmanovic in the final, after which came victories in Cagliari 2021 (defeated Laslo Djere in the final act), Metz 2022 (defeated Alexander Bublik in the final) and Winston-Salem 2024 (overcame Alex Michelsen in the decisive match).
