Luciano Darderi produced the performance of his life as he dumped Alexander Zverev out of the Italian Open and after the match he was asked about the German\u2019s complaints about the conditions at Foro Italico.<\/p>\n
Ranked No 20 at the start of his home event, the Italian\u2019s previous best results at ATP Masters 1000 events were a couple of third-round appearances, but he went one better when he beat Tommy Paul to reach the round of 16.<\/p>\n
Up against second seed Zverev, Darderi made a nightmare start as he was broken twice as the German took the first set 6-1 and then came out to serve for the match at 5-4 in the second. But the 18th seed broke back in game 10 and took it to a tie-breaker.<\/p>\n
However, he again found himself on the brink of an exit as Zverev had match points at 6-5, 8-7, 8-9 and 9-10, but somehow saved them all and then took the match to a decider on his second set point.<\/p>\n
Zverev then completely collapse<\/a>d as the hometown hero broke in games one, three and five and then served it out for a famous 1-6, 7-6 (12-10), 6-0 win and set up a quarter-final clash against Spanish youngster Rafael Jodar<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alexander Zverev issues strong complaint after losing to Luciano Darderi at the Italian Open<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Jannik Sinner explains why losing at the Italian Open would be \u2018great\u2019 for his Roland Garros hopes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n During the post-match press conference, Darderi admitted he was so focused that he forgot how many points he saved.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many match points did I save? Four, really? I was so focused that I swear I don\u2019t remember. I think it was one or two,\u201d he revealed.<\/p>\n \u201cI had always played at night and went to bed at three or four. Today was the first match I played during the day. The conditions were different. There is a lot of pressure playing here. I wanted to show that I could play a match like this.<\/p>\n \u201cLuckily, I managed to win because I could have easily lost. Nevertheless, the level is there. Despite losing the second set, I knew I was playing well. I am proud to have kept fighting in the toughest moments.\u201d<\/p>\n Zverev was not happy with the playing conditions and he voiced his unhappiness about the BNP Paribas Arena during his press conference.<\/p>\n The world No 3 told the media: \u201cIt was difficult to play. I mean, to be honest, the court, I think this is the worst court I\u2019ve ever played on. Juniors, professional, futures, practice, I never player on a court where the court quality is that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Darderi agreed that the court was not great, he felt it was the same for both players and he adapted quite well.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it wasn\u2019t easy, it was windy, but we can\u2019t control the wind, right? The wind was [terrible] for both of us so I don\u2019t think it was a problem because the wind is there, we can\u2019t control it,\u201d the 24-year-old said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe court wasn\u2019t 100% at times, but it\u2019s something you have to get used to, I\u2019ve gotten better at adapting to it and so I think that yes, the court is an added thing, it\u2019s not that great.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were some bad bounces for me, for him, certainly, but I don\u2019t see it as such a serious thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Italian Open: Luciano Darderi responds to Alexander Zverev complaints<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luciano Darderi produced the performance of his life as he dumped Alexander Zverev out of the Italian Open and after the match he was asked about the German\u2019s complaints about the conditions at Foro Italico. Ranked No 20 at the start of his home event, the Italian\u2019s previous best results at ATP Masters 1000 events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Italian Open News<\/h2>\n