Debut with a defeat and a victory for Flavio Cobolli at the World Tennis Continental Cup on stage until Sunday on the fast indoor venue in Shenzhen, China, and broadcast live and free on SuperTennis.
The Roman, number 22 in the world and protagonist of the Italian triumph in the Davis Cup in Bologna, plays the first matches in view of the new season in the exhibition similar to the Laver Cup (and consequently the golf Ryder Cup), on the Europe-Rest of the World model, although with peculiar divisions compared to the geographical ones: the Russian Andrey Rublev and the Kazakh Elena Rybakina, in fact, are part of the Rest of the World.
In the first match of the second day he was defeated 76(5) 63 by the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang after missing 10 break points. Zhang played the important points better and this allowed him to make the difference. Cobolli, more imprecise than the Chinese in the tie-break, had the opportunity to change the fate of the match but was unable to exploit them. In fact, he was ahead 0-40 in the first game and 15-40 in the seventh, without however managing to break the Chinese player’s serve. So the break suffered by the blue in the second game was decisive.
Later, the Italian redeemed herself in the mixed doubles paired with Belinda Bencic, winning with a score of 63 76(3) against Zhang and Wang Xinyu. After a first set well controlled by the two Europeans thanks to the decisive break in the eighth game, the situation became complicated in the central phase of the second set. Down 2-4, the two Chinese equalized with a counter-break in the eighth game, before surrendering in the final game. Cobolli and Bencic, in fact, wasted three balls for a new break at 5-5, but finally imposed their greater quality from 2-2 in the tie-break, with a 5-1 break to close the practice.
In the overall calculation, however, the Rest of the World is ahead 6-4, also and above all thanks to Wang’s success against the world no.2 Iga Swiatek with 62 63, and then to that of Andrey Rublev over Valentin Vacherot. The Russian prevailed with 26 76(5) 10-7, also canceling match points against the Monegasque, champion of the Masters 1000 in Shanghai in 2025.
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