Nerves? No! What Flavio Cobolli lacked in his first-round match at the 33rd TERRA WORTMANN OPEN against Frances Tiafoe was the form and fine-tuning on grass that he hadn’t yet found. At least in the first set. The Italian lost that set straight through, 2-6. The French Open finalist was up against a mountain from the outset against the in-form American. Breaks at 0-1 and 1-4 saw the first set slip away.
In the second set, 24-year-old Cobolli, who has been ranked tenth in the world since Paris, found his feet. However, he was unable to break the hard-hitting Tiafoe, so the set went to a tie-break. Here, Cobolli – who had lost to Alexander Zverev in the quarter-finals in Halle last year – made a mistake at 4-4; Tiafoe capitalised on the advantage on his own serve and sealed the deal. 6-4, 7-6 – Tiafoe, the world number 26, raised his fist in victory.
For 28-year-old Frances Tiafoe, this is his first appearance in Halle at the TERRA WORTMANN OPEN. And he hopes that many more will follow. “I’m in good form, I want to stay in the tournament for a long time,” said Tiafoe. “Cobolli is a bloody good player and is having a bloody good season. I knew he’d be playing his first match on grass. That’s never easy. So I tried to just go out there, give it my all and make things really difficult for him, playing very fast and throwing him off his game. I managed that pretty well.”
However, Cobolli fans won’t have to do without their favourite entirely. As early as Tuesday, the Italian will be in action alongside Ben Shelton (USA) in the doubles (fourth match on the schauinsland-reisen Court). Their opponents are the third seeds, Adam Pavlasek (CZE) and Andrea Vavassori (ITA).
