Italy Major: Cremona, Marchetti and Casali win the Azzurri derbies, Pappacena well!

After hours and hours of exciting battles on the fields, a second very long day at the Italy Major in Rome ended around 2:00 am. And to close Tuesday at the Foro Italico, it was one of today’s most anticipated matches in Italy, or the blue derby (the third of the day) between Lorenzo Di Giovanni/Riccardo Sinicropi and Simone Cremona with the Portuguese Nuno Deus, match won by the seconds with a peremptory 6-1 6-4 in an hour and 13 minutes of play.

In this match, the dominance of Cremona and Deus was quite clear right from the start. In fact, the Italian-Portuguese duo won nine of the first ten games, rising to 6-1 3-0 and therefore directing the match in their favor. And then the small reaction of Di Giovanni and Sinicropi was of no use, because from 4-4 onwards Cremona and Deus started to do badly again and thus easily closed the match. At the end of the match, the statistics confirm the great difference seen on the pitch, especially if you look at them the winners made by the two pairs (30 against 18 for DiGio/Sinicropi) and, above all, the conversion of break points (5/13 those converted by the winning pair against 2/14 of the opponents).

For Cremona, who had only a few weeks had the satisfaction of entering the main draw of the Mar del Plata P1 (in Argentina), this result represents a further important step in a padelistic career that is getting richer and richer day after day. And now room for the deserved reward: in the next round (scheduled for tomorrow), Simone and his partner Nuno Deus they will have the privilege of facing the world number 2s Alejandro Galan and Federico Chingotto (who will be making their debut in the capital’s tournament after the first round bye), in a match that will be practically impossible to win, but which will certainly be useful to try and learn something from two of the best players on the entire circuit.

In addition to Cremona, Carlotta Casali then passed the turn in Italy, who together with his Spanish partner Soriano defeated the all-blue couple formed by Emily Stellato and Giulia Sussarello, at the end of a challenge full of twists and turns. After a set on each side and a match point wasted in the tie-break of the second set by Casali and Soriano, the Italian-Hispanic couple then sensationally won come back from 5-0 down in the third set, but a little later she managed to prevail in the tie-break (after canceling a break point at 5-5), closing the match with 6-4 6-7(6) 7-6 (2) and thus giving himself a round of 16 not so impossible against Talavan/Nogueira (tds 13).

In the end, Giorgia Marchetti and Chiara Pappacena were also able to rejoice for Italy: the first defeated, together with the French Godallier, compatriot Lorena Vano and the Spanish Blanco by 5-7 6-3 6-1 and thus gave herself a gift another derby against her friend Carolina Orsi and the returning Swede Carolina Navarro (this match will be the first tomorrow, Wednesday 19 June, on central court); the second, however, paired with the Spanish Clasca, beat Piltcher/Castillon and reached two very difficult opponents in the second round Virginia Riera/Sofia Araujo (tds 6), at their last tournament together before the division (already certain that Araujo will join Marta Ortega, who in turn will therefore leave Veronica Virseda). «It was wonderful to play against Pietrangeli, all this support energized me – said Pappacena after his match -. It was a tough match, they were very solid, but we were probably even more so. Tomorrow we will play until the end».

However, there was nothing to be done for the other Italians who took to the field on the second day. In fact, the wild cards Martina Parmigiani and Erika Zanchetta they wasted too much and were eliminated by the Spanish Canellas/T. Navarro with a double 6-3, and the same fate befell to the other wild cards Marianela Montesi/Valentina Tommasi, demolished by the Spanish Barrera/Caparros 6-0 6-1 in just 47 minutes of play.

As for the other results of the day outside of the Italians, the surprise defeat of the recent winners of Bordeaux P2, Jon Sanz and Coki Nieto, should be immediately noted. sensationally surpassed by Bautista/Guerrero by 6-7(6) 7-6(2) 7-5, at the end of a match full of emotions and which ended after three hours and 8 minutes of play. No jokes instead from the highly anticipated Tolito Aguirre paired with Gonzalo Rubio: the imaginative Argentine player and the Spaniard played a good match against Ramirez/Hernandez and achieved success with a double 6-4 6-4. Now Tolito and Rubio will play in the round of 32 against the Argentine experts Maxi Sanchez/Sanyo Gutierrez (tds 8), at their last tournament together before the separation. Finally, two other results that deserve mention are those achieved in the matches won by Capra/Chozas (tds 12) and Rico/Esbri (tds 16): 6-1 3-6 6-4 for the former against the Italian-Argentinians Patiniotis/Dominguez and 6-4 7-5 for the latter against the veterans Belluati/Lamperti.

As happened today, also tomorrow, Wednesday 19 June, the day will be divided into a morning session (starting at 9:00) and an afternoon session (starting at 18:00). It will definitely be a fiery day, saw the debut of all the best players on the circuit in both the men’s and women’s fields. The show will therefore not be missing, and the hope is that the public responds presently.