Berrettini beats Murray in Stuttgart final
STUTTGART, Germany — Matteo Berrettini showed signs of recapturing the form which took him to the Wimbledon final last year as he beat Andy Murray 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 to win the Stuttgart Open on Sunday in his first tournament for three months.
The Italian hadn’t played since Indian Wells in March because of a hand injury which forced him to miss the entire clay-court swing and, in Murray, faced an opponent whose own injury issues hampered him in the deciding set.
“It was the last thing that I imagined when I came here,” Berrettini said of winning the title on his return to the tour.
Three-time Grand Slam champion Murray collided with one of the players’ seats at courtside in the first point of the decider and called for the physio soon after for treatment on his left leg and hip. He took another timeout when he appeared to indicate a problem with his abdominal muscles at 4-2 down.
“This is not the way that we wanted to finish the match,” Berrettini said, and he praised Murray’s history of bouncing back from injuries. “He showed us so many times how to come back.”
Berrettini moves to 6-3 in career finals with his second career Stuttgart title, while Murray is 46-24 in his 70th career final as he chased a first title since 2019. It was the first time Murray played a singles final on grass since winning Wimbledon in 2016.
Tournament organizers said Sunday that an investigation had begun after Nick Kyrgios said he faced racist abuse from the crowd in his semifinal loss to Murray the day before.
HADDAD MAIA WINS NOTTINGHAM OPEN
NOTTINGHAM, England — Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil captured her first WTA title by winning the Nottingham Open thanks to a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Alison Riske of the United States.
The seventh-seeded Haddad Maia consigned the sixth-seeded Riske to a second loss in the final of the grass-court tournament in central England. The other time was in 2016.
Haddad Maia beat topseeded Maria Sakkari on the way to the final and became the first Brazilian title winner on the WTA tour since Teliana Pereira in 2015.