The 2020 tennis year of… Matteo Berrettini
Matteo Berrettini was the newcomer of the year 2019. Due to injuries, the Italian could not confirm his performances this season.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Dec 12, 2020, 10:53 pm
Objectively speaking, Matteo Berrettini is probably the player who benefited the most from the frozen points on the ATP tour (well, well: Roger Federer fared even better in this regard). Berrettini only won nine games last season. And still winters as number eleven in the world.
The meager match yield, a total of 15 games, has of course to do with the fact that the 24-year-old Roman was injured at the beginning of the year. And traveled to the Australian Open without preparation. There it was over in round two against the amazing Tennys Sandgren. After that, Berrettini was forced to take time off again and cured his ailments. And reported back to various exhibition tournaments.
Berrettini beats Tsitsipas in the Ultimate Tennis Showdown
First at Patrick Mouratoglou and his Ultimate Tennis Showdown (whose first edition Berrettini won in the final against Stefanos Tsitsipas ), then at Thiem's 7 in Kitzbühel, and finally at the three-day lawn event in Berlin, where the Italian lawn specialist Dominic Thiem lost .
After losing to Reilly Opelka in Cincinnati / New York, Matteo Berrettini was able to go to the US Open without great pressure, the 720 points he had won in the 2019 semi-finals were retained under all circumstances, and so the knockout of the last sixteen against Andrey Rublev was painful not so much like the bankruptcy againstCasper Ruud in the quarterfinals of his home tournament in Rome. The Norwegian was able to assert himself in the Foro Italico in the tie-break of the third set. At the US Open Berrettini had won the duel with Ruud.
Loss against Altmaier in Roland Garros
The French Open was also disappointing, Berrettini lost in round three to the German newcomer Daniel Altmaier. And then had to pause again. there was only one final appearance in Paris-Bercy, where Berrettini lost to the American Marcus Giron right at the beginning.
Even if the year did not go according to Matteo Berrettini's wishes - the Italian number one could always rely on one thing: his serve. Berrettini won a whopping 91 percent of his service games. When it came to the return, it looked a lot more dull: the success rate as a setback was only 18 percent.