Flavio Cobolli clinched his maiden ATP title on a hard court at the Mexican Open in Acapulco after overcoming a stern test from Frances Tiafoe.
The Italian fifth seed fired 34 winners during his 7-6(4), 6-4 win over former Grand Slam semi-finalist Tiafoe. A player whom he had never beaten before on the Tour until this week. Cobolli won 79% of his first service points and was only broken once in the match, which was halfway through the second set.
23-year-old Cobolli joins Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini in being the only Italian players to win multiple ATP 500 titles since the series was created in 2009. Last year, he won the Hamburg Open, as well as an ATP 250 event in Romania. Both of those events were on clay.
“When I was a kid, I was dreaming for this moment,” atptour.com quoted Cobolli as saying after the final in Mexico. “For this kind of tournament, playing on the center court with people cheering for me. I’m very proud, not only for me, but also for the people that work for me — my dad, my family, the rest of my team. They will help me a lot.”
The triumph comes during a resurgence for Cobolli, who got off to a slow start this season by losing three matches in a row. Since then, he has won seven out of eight matches played. Last week, he was a semi-finalist at the Delray Beach Open.
“I think I deserve it for how I work outside the court,” he said. “After the losses, I work again on court and I just want to say that I’m very proud of myself. It was a great match today, I think it was the best of the tournament for me. I never won against [Frances] before today, so I’m very happy.”
Cobolli will rise to a career-best 15th in the ATP rankings on Monday. He is the third-highest-ranked player from his country on the men’s Tour after Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti.
As for the weeks ahead, Cobolli has a golden opportunity to gain more ranking points at the Indian Wells and Miami Masters events. He is only defending a few points at those tournaments, having lost his opening matches at both events 12 months ago.
