Italian tennis is going through a sweet moment. Matteo berrettini It is the transalpine number 1, Fabio Fognini the veteran, Jannik Sinner the promising future and now Lorenzo Sonego (Turin, 25 years old) has been confirmed as an alternative. The Italian embroidered tennis in the Vienna ATP 500 and not before anyone. He swept Novak Djokovic himself off the track, who could not 'celebrate' more bitterly that he will finish the course as number 1 for the sixth year in his career (he had only lost in 2020 by disqualification against Carreño at the US Open and with Nadal at Roland Garros). The scoreboard speaks for itself: 6-2 and 6-1. Yes, they read that well. Nole could only win three games against the tennis gale of Sonego, whose portentous driveAmong other virtues, it is well above what the ranking dictates: nº 42.
The duel turned to face for Sonego at the first of change since he broke the Serbian's serve at the start. Disbelief accompanied Djokovic throughout that first set. The repertoire of grimaces, arms akimbo and head down, as we saw this year on other occasions, did not bode well for the Belgrade. He conceded a partial 4-0 that it was an insurmountable wall, despite the fact that he managed to make up the set to avoid the donut (6-2). The numbers, like cotton, are not deceiving: Nole signed a meager 46% of points played with first serve and only 36% won with second serve. If you add to that more unforced errors by the Serbian and 86% of points won with first from Sonego, the result cannot be other than a good review.
And the second set started in the same way as the previous one, with a break for Sonego that allowed him to get the victory back on track. If anyone could overcome a 6-2 and 2-0 adverse, that is Nole, but in this meeting he did not bring out his classic version of escapist. The turning point came in the endless fourth game, when Djokovic did not know (or could not) take advantage of three break balls to equalize the contest. Sonego's blow was definitive and neither did it wrinkle at the time of closing the game. Sonego's first win against Djokovic (they had never faced each other), or what is the same, first victory for him against a member of the Big three to reach the semifinals … how lucky loser! Only time will tell if it is here to stay …
Rest of the day
And the hits of the favorites did not stop there. Starting with the second seed of the tournament and local idol, the Austrian Dominic Thiem, who lost in straight sets to Andrey Rublev who has been in for a sensational year: 7-6 (5) and 6-2. Thiem fell apart after giving up the first set and the Russian did not forgive in the second against a rival who still does not seem to have recovered his best version since winning the US Open.
Another of the players who arrived with a better poster than his rival was Daniil Medvedev. The Russian already had serious difficulties to reach the quarterfinals and took its toll on Kevin Anderson, along with some punctual double faults (4 by 0 of the South African): 6-4 and 7-6 (5). The meeting that closed the activity in Vienna ended with the victory of Daniel evans (7-6, 4-6 and 6-3 to Grigor Dimitrov), Sonego's next rival.