Halep marches on in Rome
Madrid finalist loses cool after losing to Fognini in three sets
Rafael Nadal powered his way into the third round of the ATP Italian Open yesterday with a straight sets win over Bosnian Damir Dzumhur.
The Spaniard won through 6-1, 6-0 in an hour as he targets an eighth title at the Foro Italico and first since 2013.
Nadal lost his first match on clay in over a year last week in the Madrid quarter-finals to Austrian Dominic Thiem and as a result lost his world number one ranking to Roger Federer.
But he will not be able to take revenge on sixth seed Thiem who lost his second round match 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 to Italian Fabio Fognini.
Thiem, last week’s Madrid finalist, crashed at the first hurdle as top women’s seed Simona Halep demolished Japan’s Naomi Osaka.
Sixth seed Thiem — who inflicted the first clay smashed his racket in fury on his way to losing to Italy’s Fabio Fognini 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in just over two hours.
Fognini, ranked 21, kept his nerve while Thiem took out his frustration on his racket after handing his rival three match points, the Italian then sealing his first win in three meetings with the Austrian.
Smashing finish
Former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova smashed the umpire’s chair in frustration after she lost to Greece’s Maria Sakkari in the second round.
In the third set with the sixth seeded Czech serving 6-3, 3-6, 5-5 (30/30) she had an overhead shot incorrectly ruled out and both the line judge and the umpire said they could not find the mark. The Czech went on to lose that game and the match 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in two hours 21 minutes. Earlier, Halep powered her way to a 6-1, 6-0 win in just under an hour on the clay of the Italico Foro to claim her fourth win over 21st-ranked Osaka in five meetings.
“It was one of those helpless feeling,” conceded Osaka who could be heard saying “I want to cry” courtside.
The match looked set to be a battle after Halep needed to save four break points.