Berrettini repeated the Queen’s title

The Italian Matteo Berrettini expanded its domain to the Queen and repeated the London club title in Sunday’s loss to Serbian Filip Krajinovic by 7-5 and 6-4.

The transalpine, which gathers the baggage of 31 wins and only three losses on the grass since 2019revalidated the title won in 2021 and retained 500 points from last year, in another showing on the lawn proving him as one of the top candidates for Wimbledon, despite the twelve-week break he suffered due to wrist surgery.

Berrettini didn’t pay for the absence on the entire clay court tour and did well on his favorite surface, where he has nine consecutive wins this year. The Italian captured 250 in Stuttgart and gave it a continuation of success at Queen’s, where he became the fourth tennis player in the 21st century to repeat the title, along with Andy Murray, Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt.

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The one from Rome, to lift the seventh title of his sporting career, succeeded in a complex first set, with many ups and downs and nerves. Krajinovic, who has lost all five finals in his life, started 0-40 down, saved all three chances at break point, but gave up on the Italian forehand in game six.

With everything in his favor to take advantage of, Berrettini lost on his next serve and even had to wait for the eleventh game to break Krajinovic’s serve again, very insecure, and score on the set.

In favor of the set, the superiority emerged of Berrettini, finalist at Wimbledon last year and one of four active tennis players, along with Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, capable of reaching three consecutive finals on the grass.

A long forehand from Krajinovic sealed the break to love Berrettini in the second set and put him on the brink of victory, which he proved 6-4, putting him on par with the Queen’s best.

The Italian joined the popular list of double winners at the London tournament, along with Murray, Marin Cilic, Roddick, Hewitt, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. In addition, he was the first tennis player in the Open Era (1968) to win the title in his first two appearances at Queen’s.

With this result, Berrettini could be placed eleventh in the ranking, a position that will not last long, as the ATP’s decision not to award points at Wimbledon would prevent him from defending the 1,200 finalists from the final edition and could exceed top. fifteen.

For his part, Krajinovic, who until this week has never won an ATP match on the grass, will climb to 31st place and will soon be in the top 30 in the world.