Indian Wells, Matteo Berrettini bows to Alexander Zverev

It stops at the second hurdle Matteo Berrettini’s adventure at the Indian Wells Masters 1000, a classic early March appointment on the ATP calendar: the Roman, who had defeated Adrian Mannarino in three sets in the first round, was in fact defeated by Alexander Zverev, in a match that lasted an hour and a quarter: 6-3, 6-4 the final score for the German, who finds success again after the surprise elimination in Acapulco at the hands of Miomir Kecmanovic.

Berrettini tried hard to put sand in the gears of the world number 4, but in both the first and the second set, a game lost on his own serve was enough to give the decisive advantage to the opponent of the day, who only needed a match point to close the score. Friday’s match ends, among other things, Berrettini’s positive series against Zverev: the Roman had in fact won the last two head-to-heads, at Wimbledon in 2023 and in Monte Carlo last year.

At the next ranking update Berrettini will lose 20 points but could, due to various combinations involving players closer to him in the rankings, recover one position and move up to No. 65 when the ATP makes the new ranking official on the morning of Monday, March 9. Zverev, on the other hand, will maintain his fourth ranking position without particular problems, as he can neither overtake those in front of him (Novak Djokovic, not to mention the unreachable Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner) nor be overtaken by those behind.

This year’s was Matteo Berrettini’s seventh career participation in Indian Wells, a tournament that has never brought him great luck: in fact, his best result is reaching the fourth round in the 2022 edition when the Italian overcame, as the No. 6 seed (which allowed him to skip the first round), Holger Rune and Lloyd Harris, before surrendering to Kecmanovic.