The Internazionali BNL d’Italia started very well for Italian tennis with convincing wins by local favourite Matteo Berrettini and 17-year-old Jannick Sinner.
Berrettini won 88 percent of his first service points and hit 25 winners to beat Lucas Pouille 6-2 6-4. The Rome native broke twice in the first and seventh games to win the opening set 6-2.
The 2019 Budapest champion saved a break point in the second game at deuce before converting his second break point in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. He never looked back and held his next service games to close out the second set 6-4 setting up a second round match against Alexander Zverev, who won the Rome title in 2017 and finished runner-up to Rafael Nadal in last year’s edition.
Italian teenager Jannick Sinner came back from losing the first set to beat Steve Johnson 1-6 6-1 7-5. Johnson earned an early break in the decider to build up a 5-2 lead. Sinner saved a match point at 2-5 30-40 before breaking back to draw level to 5-5. Sinner earned another break and held his serve at 30 to close out the third set 7-5. Sinner secured his spot in the second round, where he will face this week’s Madrid finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Roberto Bautista Agut beat Andreas Seppi 6-1 3-6 6-1 securing his spot in the second round, where he will face either Karen Khachanov or this year’s Monte-Carlo and Marrakesh quarter finalist Lorenzo Sonego.
