‘s debut ends with a spectacular comeback victory Matteo Arnaldi in the ATP 500 in Barcelona. The blue canceled four match points and beat 57 76 62 the Argentine Sebastian Baez, eighth seed of the Catalan tournament.
Very balanced match and played at a high level by both contenders with constant changes of direction. Arnaldi had a drop in tension in the seventh game but did well to recover the break for 5-all. But when the epilogue to the tie-break was looming, the Ligurian lost his first serve, surrendered the serve for the second time and Baez was able to close the set at the second useful set point.
In the second set there was the reaction of Arnaldi who flew ahead 4-1 missing the ball twice to make it 5-1. At this point Arnaldi got stuck, suffering the return of Baez. In a flash, the Argentine twice snatched the serve from the blue and arrived undisturbed to serve for the match ahead 5-4. The tenth game was a hellish game of 16 points with Baez wasting a match point and with the blue capable of converting the fifth break point of the game to return to the match alive.
Not least was the tie-break that Arnaldi recovered by canceling 3 consecutive match points from 6-3 to 6 all. Arnaldi took courage and after missing the first set point at 7-6 and the second at 8-7, he evened the set score by closing the tie-break 10 points to 8.
At this point Baez suffered the backlash and Arnaldi started the third and decisive set with a break lead, confirmed for 2-0. Arnaldi extended the lead to 5-1 and then closed 6-2 in 2 hours and 50 minutes of very high tension.
11 aces ended up on the blue scoreboard, but also 9 double faults, 55% of first balls with which he obtained 71% of the points. The break points conceded were 6 out of 16, while those of the Argentine were 5 out of 6.
In the round of 16 Arnaldi awaits the winner between Marco Trungelliti and the Chilean Nicolas Jarry.
