Tennis, Challenger of Milan: Passaro in the semifinals

You have to go easy on comparisons, but numbers are numbers. And if read in the right way they can be used to believe in what you are doing, to aim for ambitious goals, to work even more. Take Francesco Passaro: with the semifinal reached at the Challenger in Milan – the Aspria Tennis Cup – the victories in 2022 are 16, arrived in the 21-year-old season. Matteo Berrettini, currently one of the main favorites to win Wimbledon, at his age (in 2017) won 35 Challenger matches in a whole year, starting from number 700 in the world and finishing 130. Passaro showed up in Milan at the 254th place and has already gained 20 positions in the ranking: thanks to three clear victories, without losing a set, against Ionel, Galarneau and Durasovic.

Inspiration

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“Well yes, I could take Berrettini as a source of inspiration – declared Passaro after the victory in the quarterfinals, with an impressive 6-1 6-1 -. Of course now I’m playing well, I’m stable in the Challenger circuit, I feel it and I proved it on the pitch. The figure of Matteo’s 35 seasonal victories? I’ll try to overcome it. Maybe I’ll do it, you never know… “. The next opponent will be Fabian Marozsan, 22-year-old Hungarian who beat Matteo Gigante in the quarter-finals, who stops after the victory against Marco Cecchinato in the round of 16.

The others

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A match, the one between Marozsan and Gigante, characterized by the interruption due to heavy rain: 7-6 6-2 the final result, with the match interrupted at the beginning of the second set. The Hungarian is the only non-seeded semifinalist: Passaro is number 8 in the seeding, the other challenge will see Federico Coria – number 1, victory against the Italian-Argentine Luciano Darderi for retirement of the latter – and Alexander Shevchenko , who got the better of the Japanese Shintaro Mochizuki. Saturday is the day of the semifinals, with Passaro on the pitch in the third and last match (we start at 13 with the first challenge): eyes on the Italian, who in the event of a victory tomorrow would enter the top 220 players in the world.