Giron surprisingly stops Berrettini

First top ten player Andrey Rublev, now former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini: Marcos Giron from California is not afraid of big names and has knocked out two prominent players at the TERRA WORTMANN OPEN.

The 30-year-old powerhouse doesn't play very spectacularly and doesn't have a significant winning shot like Berrettini's serve.  But Giron has three trump cards up his sleeve. He hardly makes any mistakes, he can adapt very skilfully to his opponent's style of play and he is often underestimated.

On the other side of the net was a player who was something of a secret favourite for the tournament. The tennis world rankings show how strong a player is. Most of the time anyway. However, when a player comes back from injury, the ranking often does not reflect their performance potential. A wonderful example of this is the current number 65, Matteo Berrettini, once number eight in the world and a finalist at Wimbledon.

The 1.96 metre tall Roman quickly made a break. Giron missed the start of the match somewhat. And once you are a break behind against Berrettini, it becomes very difficult. Because the Stuttgart finalist from last week can do one thing: serve! Berrettini has won 91 per cent of his service games on grass in his career. That's how he rushed through the first set. After 24 minutes it was 6:3.

But Giron also served well, only wobbling once at the beginning. Or to put it another way: neither of them managed much in their return games. Until 5:4 in favour of the American from Thousand Oaks in California, when he suddenly had a break point. Synonymous with set point. The Roman fended off the first, but on the second, a forehand from Giron whizzed down the line out of reach. Set equaliser!

The former world no. 6 wanted to rectify this immediately and got two break chances - only to promptly miss them.  The level of the rallies now increased somewhat. However, Giron increasingly took control of the match. At 3:2, he again had two break points. On the second, a slice backhand from Berrettini sailed into the net. The Californian played his best phase towards the end of the match. After 1:44 hours, he had reached his second quarter-final in Halle.

Giron now faces an opponent who serves even better than he did in the round of 16. Hubert Hurkacz from Poland hit more than 1,000 aces in 2023, making him the best player in this statistic by a huge margin. But he should not underestimate Marcos Giron.