Was Pierre Hugues Herbert to win the second match scheduled on the Centrale, beating the Italian Francesco Maestrelli in three sets in three sets with a score of 64 36 63 and thus qualifying for the quarter-finals where the winner of the match between Fabio Fognini and Arthur Gea awaits.
As happened against Raoul Brancaccio, Herbert almost ended his second consecutive match with a 6-0. And so just as it was Herbert who canceled seven match points from Brancaccio before you get it, this time it was the Frenchman who saw the seven opportunities he had to close the score sent back to the sender between the sixth and ninth games of the third set.
More balanced match than the score might suggest, dotted with break points (23 in total) which altered the flow several times, allowing Herbert to rejoin a game which in the second set had seen his serving percentages drop . And it was indeed true the serve to abandon Maestrelli in the third setthanks to a paltry 36% of first balls fielded – polluted by 4 double faults – and a second one which proved to be too weak and too tameable by the slow clay surface of the “Campo D’Avalos”.
With the epilogue already written and trailing 5-0, Maestrelli partially redeemed his performance postponing the end during the last four games in which he managed to break Herbert’s serve when the latter came to serve to close him by canceling four match points, and then a fifth and a sixth again, before capitulating in front of the seventh occasion.
