(Stuttgart) Denis Shapovalov lost 6-4, 6-4 to Matteo Berrettini in the round of 16 of the Stuttgart Open tennis tournament on Thursday.
Shapovalov, who is ranked 117th in the world, fell to the Italian after an hour and 14 minutes on the German pitch. He is now 2-1 in his career against Berrettini, having beaten him in the 2019 Davis Cup finals and the 2018 St. Petersburg tournament.
The 25-year-old Ontarian lacked bite with his first serve ball during the match, winning only 53% of the points in this phase of play, compared to 68% for his opponent.
Shapovalov still recorded three aces, except that he also committed four times as many double faults (4-1) as his rival. The Canadian also made a total of 11 unforced errors, compared to five for Berrettini.
In addition, the representative of the maple leaf was unable to break his opponent on his only opportunity of the match, while Berrettini converted two of his three break points – to take the lead 5-4 in the first set, then 3- 2 in second. He never looked back after that, converting the first of his three match points.
Berrettini will now face in the quarter-finals the winner of the duel between Australian James Duckworth and the second seed of the tournament, American Ben Shelton.
On the other hand, the Ontarian Gabriela Dabrowski and her New Zealand playing partner Erin Routliffe will meet the British Maia Lumsden and Naiktha Bains in the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles tournament in Nottingham, United Kingdom, more late today.
For her part, Ontarian Bianca Andreescu will cross swords with Japanese Naomi Osaka in the quarter-finals of the tournament in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands, on Friday.
