Berrettini wins first set against Arnaldi in Roland Garros derby

Matteo Berrettini and Matteo Arnaldi battled in the first set of their Roland Garros quarter-final, with Berrettini taking an early lead.

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At one point it wasn't tennis anymore, it was something else. I was just playing with everything I had. There had to be a winner, and luckily it was me.

Arnaldi managed to break Berrettini's serve in the fourth game, securing his first point and then holding his own service to go up 3-0. However, Berrettini immediately responded by breaking Arnaldi's serve twice to take control of the set.

The "derby azzurro" (all-Italian derby) in Paris guarantees at least one Italian in the semi-finals. Arnaldi, who previously won a grueling five-and-a-half-hour match against Frances Tiafoe, expressed his exhaustion but determination. "At one point it wasn't tennis anymore, it was something else," he said. "I was just playing with everything I had. There had to be a winner, and luckily it was me."

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A Parigi abbiamo la riprova di come il nostro tennis sia vivo come non mai.

Former player Vincenzo Santopadre praised the current state of Italian tennis, noting its strength even without top players like Sinner and Musetti, as evidenced by their Davis Cup win. He highlighted the exceptional presence of three Italians in the quarter-finals, singling out Arnaldi for his rapid rise. Santopadre also assessed Berrettini as being at 71% of his peak form from 2021.

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Che lo fosse del resto lo avevamo già visto in occasione della Coppa Davis a fine anno, quando senza Sinner e Musetti l'abbiamo rivinta. Stessa cosa ora a Parigi, senza i nostri due migliori. È eccezionale vedere 3 italiani nei quarti di finale. E di questi 3 chi mi stupisce di più è Arnaldi, Un mese fa stentava al primo turno del challenger di Cagliari, che poi ha vinto.

In doubles, Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori advanced to the semi-finals, defeating Petr Nouza and Neil Oberleitner. Meanwhile, Alexander Zverev reached his fifth Paris semi-final, defeating Rafael Jodar and expressing his ambition to win the tournament.

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rispetto alla sua versione migliore, quella del 2021 quando andò in finale a Wimbledon, è al 71%.