There blue wild card Francesco Passaro also passes the decisive round of qualifications beating the number 24 of the cadet seeding, the Croatian Duje Ajdukovic, with a score of 7-6 (5) 6-7 (6) 7-6 (3) in exactly three hours of gameplay and arrives at main draw of the 2024 Italian tennis internationalscategory tournament ATP Masters 1000.
In the first set there is immediately an exchange of breaks at the start, then the two players on the court record the serve and there are no other break points until the obligatory epilogue to the tiebreak. Passaro escapes at 3-0 and then extends again to 5-1, the Croatian shortens to 3-5, but the blue gets three set points at 6-3, then taking advantage of the third opportunity, the first with the serve available , to close on 7-5 after 51′.
In the second game the serve continues to dominate and there are no break points until the tenth game, when the blue serves to stay in the set at 4-5 but finds himself 0-40 down. From that moment, however, 17 consecutive points were won by the server, which means that Passaro erases the three set points and then the two contenders reach the tiebreak, where the balance remains until 2-2. At that point there is an exchange of minibreaks, which however does not change things, and the two opponents turn at 3-3. The blue player reaches match point at 6-5, but the Croatian wins the last three points played and makes him the partial winner 8-6 after 64 minutes.
WTA Rome 2024, all the Italian players involved in the first round of qualifications have been eliminated
See more
In the decisive match Passaro appears irrepressible and scores a partial of 20 points to 6, holding three rounds of serve at fifteen and above all breaking the Croatian’s serve twice, first at fifteen and then at thirty. It seems almost done, but Ajdukovic has the strength to rebalance the contest by in turn scoring a partial of 20 points to 9, which brings the match to 5-5. Without further shocks we go to the tiebreak again: the Croatian escapes at 2-0, but Passaro finds the 2-2, then the rain comes after an hour of play. After about three quarters of an hour of suspension we return to the field and the blue immediately escapes with a 4-2 lead. The Croatian shortens to 3-4 after the change of court, but the Italian holds the two rounds of serve and wins three match points at 6-3. The first opportunity is immediately the good one, because another minibreak arrives which allows They managed to close at 7-3 after a total of 65 minutes of play.
The statistics indicate the substantial balance seen on the field, with Passaro wins 116 points against 112 of Croatian. The blue scores 37 winners against 25 of the Balkan, barely conceding 10 free vs 12 of the opponent. The Italian tennis player clings to serve in delicate moments and scores 13 aces against 8 of Ajdukovic, committing only one double fault, against the Croatian’s 6.
