Berrettini battles past Otte for the Stuttgart final

Matteo Berrettini will play in the Stuttgart Open final after battling past a fairly strong Oscar Otte in two close sets 7-6(7) 7-6(5).

The Italian is playing his first event since having wrist surgery back in March and he's in the final. It's a superb testament to his preparation and recovery as he clearly did not rush and waited till he was fully comfortable playing again. The event being played on grass certainly doesn't hurt either as Berrettini wrecks havoc on this surface with his deadly serve+forehand combo.

He didn't need much of it today as for the most part, Otte struggled to keep the ball in play after the serve. The German did not have a single break point but he had to save one on his serve at 4-4. After that, we went into the tiebreak and it was a fairly close one with Berrettini getting it done 9-7. Both dominated on their serve and hit over 10 aces in the opening set.

The 2nd set followed the same script. Once again it was the serves that dominated in most rallies with players struggling to develop any sort of rallies. Berrettini was still a bit more dominant with his serve and that's the reason he won the opening set as well. The 2nd set finished in a tiebreak as well with Berrettini proving once again slightly better 7-5.