Davis Cup, it’s 1-0 Italy over'Austria: Matteo Berrettini beats Jurij Rodionov

Matteo Berrettini puts Italy ahead in the race for the Davis Cup semifinals. In fact, the Roman beat Jurij Rodionov in two sets in the first match between the Azzurri and Austria. The match, which lasted just over an hour and a half, ended 6-3, 7-6(4) after a first set controlled quite easily by the Wimbledon 2021 finalist and a second in which he instead managed to pull off an excellent comeback.

Berrettini&#8217s start to the match was excellent as, after six rather balanced games, he nullified a break point from Rodionov in the seventh and then snatched his serve in the eighth. At 5-3 the Blue only needed to control operations to take the set on the second attempt after a little more than half an hour.

All different trend, however, in the second set. Here it was Rodionov who got off to a much better start, so much so that he even took a 5-2 lead after the break won in the sixth game. Berrettini, however, is good at staying in the match, hitting the counterbreak at 4-5 and then equalizing the score in the following game by even annulling three break points to the Austrian (which would have been the set point of the tie). At the tie-break, then, the Roman built a reassuring lead at 5-2 and then closed the score at 7-4.

Now Italy awaits Flavio Cobolli, who beating Filip Misolic would bring Italy to 2-0 against Austria making Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori&#8217s doubles match useless. Whoever passes the round will face surprising Belgium, which has already clinched the semifinals by beating France thanks to the feats of Raphael Collignon and Zizou Bergs over the fearsome transalpines Corentin Moutet and Arthur Rinderknech.