Lorenzo Musetti earned Italy their first point and
Matteo Berrettini secured the 2nd one with a comeback win over
Borna Coric 6-7(4) 6-2 6-3.
The Italian returned to competition for the first time since a disappointing exit at the US Open where he wanted to go deep. It didn't look too good early on as he suffered from the same problems he had in the US Open. Despite playing on native soil, Matteo struggled with his rhythm early falling behind 1-4.
He did find some rhythm moving forward and battled back to make it a tie game but he still had holes in his game. One of those nearly cost him the set as Coric squandered a pretty big set point. Eventually, the Croatian was able to take the set 7-4 in the tiebreak.
The serve wasn't the issue for Berrettini that much but he forced winners often and it didn't work out. The 2nd set was him taking a much more measured approach and it coincided with Coric falling off a cliff. The Croatian could not keep the ball in play at all. Only 3 winners and 12 unforced errors was not good enough as Berrettini cruised 6-2.
The final set saw superb play from Berrettini as he finally arrived. Booming after the 2nd set, Berrettini took the balls early smashing them really well. Coric could not handle it at all and he dropped the set 6-1. In the end a very good win for Berrettini considering the slow start.