Matteo Berrettini avenges Jannik Sinner and Luciano Darderi in Paris
After the bitter eliminations of Jannik Sinner and Luciano Darderi, comes a colossal satisfaction for Italian tennis from Paris Thursday. Signing it is Matteo Berrettini, who was able to eliminate home favorite Arthur Rinderknech in just three sets and clinch qualification to the third round of Roland Garros. The Roman, currently number 105 in the ATP rankings, got the better of the world number 25 in about two hours and 20 minutes, beating him with a score of 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. In the next round he will face Francisco Comesana, one of the Argentines fatal on the same day to the Italian’s path on transalpine soil. In fact, it was he who had eliminated Darderi, while Sinner had collapsed against Juan Manuel Cerundolo.
In a scorching Paris even in the evening, Berrettini put his match on the downhill slope already in the third game of the first set by going for the 2-1 break. Rinderknech does not react, indeed: he has to cancel two more in the fifth game. He then gives up his serve in the game that opens the second set, lasting an impressive 14 points. The Roman flies to 4-1, and little is changed by the immediate counter-break of his transalpine opponent. The Italian even manages to repeat the pattern in the next and decisive set, with a 1-0 break that this time comes just on the sixth point. Nothing else changed: a little more than half an hour and three match points later came victory and passage to the round.
A victory that takes on an even sweeter flavor when one considers the context in which it comes. Berrettini had started his Roland Garros 2026 by remounting Hungary’s Márton Fucsovics in the first round, losing the first set in a tie-break before prevailing 6-7, 7-5, 6-1, 6-2 after more than three hours of play. It was a comeback success that had already demonstrated the mental solidity of the Roman, capable of not giving up in moments of difficulty and growing throughout the match.
The victory over Rinderknech also counts as a response to those who, in recent weeks, had questioned his competitiveness at the highest level. Berrettini had arrived in Paris as world number 105, outside the top 100, after a period of ups and downs that had slowed his rise in the rankings. Today’s success, clear and convincing against a ranking opponent like the Frenchman, number 25 ATP and host, proves that the Roman still has a lot to say on clay.
Awaiting Berrettini in the third round will therefore be Francisco Comesana, the world 102 who on the same day eliminated Luciano Darderi in five sets with the score of 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, after about four and a quarter hours of battle. The Argentine proved a tough nut to crack for the Italian-Argentine, withstanding two comebacks and finding the decisive break at 3-2 in the fifth set. For Berrettini, therefore, it will be an opponent not to be underestimated, capable of playing at a high level over the distance and already proving fatal for a top-ranked tennis player in the rankings.
Thursday’s match, however, remains marked by bitterness over the exits of Sinner and Darderi. The world number one, who had arrived in Paris having won the first five Masters 1000s of the year-an all-time record in tennis history-had collapsed against Cerundolo after dominating the first two sets and even leading 5-1 in the third, the victim of a devastating physical meltdown related to the extreme heat, with temperatures felt as high as 36 degrees on the Philippe Chatrier. The defeat halted her extraordinary streak of consecutive victories at 30. In this scenario of blue desolation, Berrettini’s ride represents the only light of a day that will remain long in the memory of Italian tennis fans.
