Flavio Cobolli still stops in the quarter-finals on the ATP circuit. He played three, the Roman, who was never able to overcome this obstacle and reach the semi-final. Beaten by Christopher O’Connell in Munich in 2013 and by Borna Coric this year in Montpellier, in the two previous ATP quarterfinals played, thethe Roman lost 64 62 against Frances Tiafoe at the Delray Beach Open.
The American won 11 of the 14 matches played in the tournament where in 2018 he won his first title on the major circuit by beating Peter Gojowczyk in the final. “My father was also there that day and it made me very happy. It was a bit as if in that moment he understood that all the work I had done had brought me this far” he recalled in an interview with ATP Average. In that impossible to forget week, in the second round he eliminated his idol Juan Martin Del Potro and achieved his first victory against a Top 10.
In the match against Cobolli, Tiafoe got 23 points out of 29 played when he fielded the first and thus built a crisis-busting success: in fact, he hadn’t won two matches in a row in the same tournament since the ATP 500 in Vienna last autumn.
Cobolli struggled right from the start, saving three break points in the first game and then giving up the serve in the next round of service. The American did what he wanted and with a second consecutive break he easily moved ahead 4-1. Here Cobolli recovered one of the two breaks without however being able to reverse the inertia of the match. In the third game of the second set Cobolli saved 4 break points, but then, as happened in the first set, he gave up two consecutive serves without ever having the chance to get back into the match.
“I think I played well overall. I also think I served much better – Tiafoe said -. Cobolli has played many matches, he started in the qualifiers, so I wanted to take away his time and make his life difficult. I’m happy with my performance.” The 26-year-old will face Tommy Paul who has defeated him in two of his three previous head-to-head encounters.