Rome: Diego Schwartzman after a great battle against Shapovalov in the final
The Argentine Diego Schwartzman also defeated Denis Shapovalov at the Masters tournament in Rome after his victory over Rafael Nadal - after 3 hours and 16 minutes of playing time.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Sep 20, 2020, 11:06 pm
After a sometimes high-class, very exciting and extremely entertaining match, Diego Schwartzman is in his first Masters final. The 28-year-old beat Canadian Denis Shapovalov by 6.4, 5: 7 and 7: 6 (4) - in a game that could have tipped in any direction at any time.
In the second round Shapovalov had already led 4: 2, but then had to accept the 5: 5 equalization before he finally forced the set equalization with 7: 5. Sentence three? An even bigger up and down. Shapovalov made the break to the lead three times - to 2: 1, to 3: 2 and to 5: 4 - but Schwartzman did not give in and always made the connection.
In the tie-break, "Diego" initially missed the 5: 2 when he pushed a pass from close range past Shapovalov, he let it come again to 4: 4, then he stayed error-free and celebrated the greatest triumph with one Masters level tournament. A great gesture afterwards when Shapovalov ran to the opposite side and congratulated Schwartzman.
Schwartzman and Shapovalov: who will end up in the top 10?
Both players deserved the victory, despite a few nervous dropouts; almost all rallies were fiercely contested, and Shapovalov, in contrast to earlier times, was mostly patient. Yes, he was usually the aggressor, but played out his points without risking too much too soon. For his standards at least, and with only twelve victories on clay so far this week. In terms of the total points, the match was as close as the result suggests: Schwartzman made 113 points, Shapovalov 112.
The final is against Novak Djokovic (Monday, 5 p.m.), Schwartzman only has around 19 hours of regeneration time ...
In addition to a first title at Masters level, Schwartzman is also about to make it into the top 10 for the first time: If he wins the final, he would have topped his career high from 11th place. In the event of a defeat, Shapovalov would be among the top ten tennis players in the world for the first time.