Matteo Berrettini flies to the final at the Mutua Madrid Open, the third Masters 1000 seasonal tennis tournament, which has a prize pool of € 2,614,465 and will end tomorrow. With a formidable performance, against the Norwegian Casper Ruud (beaten with a double 6-4), the Roman obtained the pass for the last challenge on clay in the ‘Caja Magica’ of the Spanish capital. For the blue n.1 – who was playing the second semifinal in a Masters 1000, after the one obtained on the Shanghai hardcourt in 2019 (then stopped by ‘Sascha’ Zverev) – this is the first final in a second category tournament at the Slams . In the match that closed the program, in the ‘Manolo Santana Stadium’, Berrettini, n.10 of the ATP and eighth favorite of the seeding, won in 1h21 ‘on the n.22 of the ranking.
Matteo highlighted all the limits of a tennis player who was also in the third semifinal in a ‘1000’ on clay, after those played in Rome last year (he was stopped by Djokovic) and in Montecarlo last month (defeated by Rublev ). The 22-year-old from Oslo was ahead by 2-1 in the balance sheet of previous matches and had won the two played on clay, including the one in the quarter-finals of the Internazionali d’Italia last year, decided at the tie-break of the third set. Tomorrow Berrettini will play the title in Madrid against the German Alexander Zverev, number 6 in the ranking and number 5 in the seeding, who in the semifinals won with a score of 6-3, 6-4 over the Austrian Dominic Thiem, number 4 in the Atp ranking and third seed of the tournament: the 24-year-old born in Hamburg is ahead 2-1 in the previous (1-1 on clay, again in the second round in Rome; in 2018 ‘Sascha’ won; in 2019 by Matteo ).