One of the first players to step onto the courts at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia Rome was Andrey Rublev and he played a very good match. His opponent was Facundo Bagnis who prefers to play on clay courts and he put up a good fight. The beginning of the match was fascinating as we saw 5 breaks in the first six games of the match.

Rublev was more successful in that mayhem and he won the 1st set 6-4. The 2nd set was much more reserved as both players played well enough to hold onto their serves until very late in the match when Rublev finally broke his opponent to take the lead and seal the match.

Another prominent player who played today was Alex De Minaur who didn't have as good of a day as Rublev. His opponent was Koepfer from Germany and the German managed to defeat the Australian after being one set down. The first set was won by De Minaur with 6-3. It looked like he would cruise to a victory but the German fought back. He won the 2nd set with 6-3 before going toe to toe with De Minaur in the final set. We ended up in a tiebreak where Koepfer was slightly better ultimately prevailing 7-5. A big victory for the German.

One german that didn't have a good day was Struff who got smashed by Coria in straight sets. An unexpected result from Struff who has been playing rather well lately. John Millman is also through to the next round after defeating Sousa also in straight sets.

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