There will be the most awaited derby: Gigante-Nardi. At the end of a tough battle, Luca Nardi prevailed against Alexander Weis. Perhaps conditioned by the heavy pitch and the temperature ten degrees lower than in recent days, the Pesaro player played a first set to forget, committing several blunders. He had the merit of tidying up his tennis, despite finding himself two points away from defeat in the tie-break of the second set, in which he had been ahead 4-0 before being caught up to 6-6. He didn’t disunite, he brought home the last two points and in the third he had an easy game, closing with a slap on the fly, sealing the score 1-6 7-6 6-2. The feeling is that Nardi can play (much) better than this, but when he gets into the ball he possesses a very special tennis, a pleasure for the eyes. He will need it against the Giant seen in these days, also because the only precedent was won by the Roman, twelve months ago in Verona, a battle closed 7-6 in the third.
Nothing to do for Francesco Forti, beaten by the Argentinian Lautaro Midon with a score of 6-3 4-6 6-4. Many regrets for the third set, in which the Romagnolo seemed to have something more than his opponent, but he made too many mistakes while Midon limited himself to dribbling. Trailing 5-2, Forti recovered the break from disadvantage (with two matchpoints disallowed) but played a bad last game, ended with a double fault. The smash thrown into the net at 0-15 weighs heavily on him. A real shame: for him it was a great opportunity to conquer the quarterfinals in a Challenger.
His defeat caused another all-Italian quarter to fade (and therefore the certainty of having at least one blue in the final), since in the last match of the day (moved to the Grandstand field), Luciano Darderi respected the prediction against Gonzalo Bueno. The Italian-Argentine prevailed 7-6 6-1, but had to struggle a lot in the first set, in which he was behind by a break (4-2), recovered at the end of a very spectacular exchange. Bueno has good timing on the ball, but Darderi is definitely more powerful than him. The Peruvian held out until the tie-break, but the blue dominated him and then strolled into the second. As far as we have seen in recent days, the older brother of the very promising Vito (born in 2008 and recent semi-finalist in the Torneo dell’Avvenire) will start as the favorite against Midon. The program will start at 12.
ASPRIA TENNIS CUP – BCS TROPHY (€73,000, clay)
Second Round Singles
Matteo Gigante (ITA) b. Giovanni Oradini (ITA) 6-1 6-2
Luca Nardi (ITA) b. Alexander Weis (ITA) 1-6 7-6(6) 6-2
Lautaro Midon (ARG) b. Francesco Forti (ITA) 6-3 4-6 6-4
Luciano Darderi (ITA) b. Gonzalo Bueno (PER) 7-6(1) 6-1
Doubles Quarter Finals
Diego Hidalgo / Sergio Martos-Gornes (ECU-ESP) b. Gianmarco Ferrari / Remy Bertola (ITA-SUI) 6-3 6-3
Alexandru Jecan / Markos Kalovelonis (ROM-GRE) b. Dmitry Popko / Carlos Taberner (KAZ-SPA) 6-2 6-3
Theo Arribage / Luca Sanchez (FRA-FRA) b. Zvonimir Babic / Mick Veldheer (CRO-NED) 6-4 6-4
Jonathan Eysseric / Denys Molchanov (FRA-UCR) b. Matteo Gigante / Francesco Maestrelli (ITA-ITA) 4-6 6-2 10-8
