Luciano Darderi saved four match points to stun Alexander Zverev 1-6, 7-6(10), 6-0 in round four of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Tuesday afternoon. Darderi booked a spot in his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal after two hours and 25 minutes.
Zverev dominated the first set and came close to securing an extremely routine victory at 5-3 in the second. Serving for the match at 5-4, however, the third-ranked German cracked. He double-faulted twice as Darderi broke to keep his comeback chances alive. The world No. 20 eventually fought off match points at 5-6, 7-8, 8-9, and 9-10 in the ensuing tiebreaker.
After somehow stealing the second, it was one-way traffic for Darderi throughout the third.
“I don’t know yet (how I won it),” the Italian said during his on-court interview. “It was a really tough match. At the beginning I was not feeling really good physically. In the second set I took some sugar. I was down in the second set. I got lucky; he gave me a chance at 5-4. I took it. The tiebreaker was a lot of pressure. It’s not easy to play here because in the beginning I always I have nerves in every match. It was a big fight mentally [for] me — that was the most important thing today.
“I won because of [the crowd]. Because in a normal tournament, you can give up. Not here. They helped me a lot on every point. I just have to say thank you to everyone. It’s a dream to be in the quarterfinals. It’s the tournament of my life. In Italy we have just one big tournament. To make the quarterfinals here for the first time is crazy.”
Darderi had been 9-18 lifetime at Masters 1000 tournaments prior to this fortnight. He had also never defeated anyone ranked better than 18th in the world prior to this result.
“I have the level [to] beat anyone,” Daderi commented. “But tennis is like this. You can beat Sasha today and then lose against the No. 50 of the world tomorrow. It’s just one match. We have to keep working.”
Tomorrow’s matchup is against a red-hot Rafael Jodar, a 19-year-old Spaniard who is up to No. 34 in the world.