Nishikori meets again and beats Fabio Fognini in Rome

Kei Nishikori continues on his way back to the tennis elite after a few years marked by injuries that diminished his performance on the circuit. The Japanese tennis player made his debut at the 1000 Masters in Rome with a resounding victory against another specialist on clay, the Italian Fabio Fognini, by a resounding 6-3 and 6-4.

The Japanese was very solid with his serve (82% of points won with his first serve) and took advantage of Fognini's bad day when serving, which allowed him to take advantage of three break balls to take the game. In the second round Nishikori will face another clay specialist, the Spanish Pablo Carreño.

The morning shift also cleared up the mystery of who will be Novak Djokovic's first rival in Rome: American Taylor Fritz, who beat Briton Dan Evans 6-3, 6-2 in a game in which Fritz was very offensive and in which he barely conceded opportunities to the Briton.

He also knows his rival Dominic Thiem, who will make his debut in the Roman tournament against Marton Fucsovics. The Hungarian hardly struggled to overcome the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka, who entered the table as a 'lucky loser', and who fell by a resounding 6-0 and 6-2.

For his part Daniil Medvedev will have a Russian duel on his debut at the 1000 Masters in Rome after the victory of Aslan Karatsev. The Russian, semi-finalist at the Australian Open, beat the Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic in two sets by 7-6 (2) and 6-4 and he will now face his compatriot, who will debut again the number 2 of the ATP ranking in the Italian city.