p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/matteo-berrettini/bk40/overview'Matteo Berrettini/a prevailed in a battle of former champions on Tuesday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/gstaad/314/overview'EFG Swiss Open Gstaad/a. /p
p The Italian overcame 2023 titlist a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/pedro-cachin/cg04/overview'Pedro Cachin/a 6-4, 7-6(2) in the first round at the clay-court ATP 250. Berrettini withstood blustery conditions in the Swiss Alps to register a one-hour, 41-minute victory in his maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash with Argentina’s Cachin. /p
p “I’m really happy, first of all to be back,” said Berrettini, who himself won the title in Gstaad in 2018. “I have nice memories here, so it’s nice to be back. I didn’t expect this wind, it was really tough. Also, Pedro obviously loves to play in these conditions, he won last year, and he was really solid. /p
p “The first match is never easy. You can practise a lot but it’s important to play the first match to know how you feel. I’m happy to be through and hopefully I’ll be at my best for the next round.” /p
blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Deal: SEALED ????a href="https://twitter.com/MattBerrettini?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@MattBerrettini/a takes out the defending champion in Gstaad, Cachin, 6-4 7-6!a href="https://twitter.com/SwissOpenGstaad?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@SwissOpenGstaad/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SwissOpenGstaad?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#SwissOpenGstaad/a a href="https://t.co/sw3OK817JL"pic.twitter.com/sw3OK817JL/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1813221502919070156?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 16, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
p Berrettini saved all three break points he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to improve to 8-0 against Argentines since the start of 2020. The former No. 6 in the PIF ATP Rankings is now 9-1 in Gstaad, where he also reached the championship match in 2022 before losing to a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/casper-ruud/rh16/overview'Casper Ruud/a. /p
p The 28-year-old Berrettini, who lifted his first trophy since 2022 at another clay ATP 250 in Marrakech in April, will take on Colombian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-elahi-galan/ge33/overview'Daniel Elahi Galan/a in the second round in Switzerland. /p
p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hamad-medjedovic/m0jf/overview'Hamad Medjedovic/a also completed a first-round victory on Tuesday afternoon. In a match that began on Monday, the 2023 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/next-gen-atp-finals/7696/overview'Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF/a champion rallied past home favourite a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/marc-andrea-huesler/hh06/overview'Marc-Andrea Huesler/a 6-7(3), 7-6(2), 6-3 to advance to face top seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/stefanos-tsitsipas/te51/overview'Stefanos Tsitsipas/a. /p
p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yannick-hanfmann/h997/overview'Yannick Hanfmann/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/quentin-halys/hb64/overview'Quentin Halys/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/gustavo-heide/h0du/overview'Gustavo Heide/a are also into the second round. Hanfmann downed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/nicolas-moreno-de-alboran/mw18/overview'Nicolas Moreno De Alboran/a 7-6(2), 6-7(2), 6-4, while Halys overcame his fellow Frenchman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/richard-gasquet/g628/overview'Richard Gasquet/a 7-6(4), 7-6(5). Brazilian qualifier Heide notched just his second tour-level victory by defeating a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/stefano-napolitano/n679/overview'Stefano Napolitano/a 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-6(3). /p
p [NEWSLETTER FORM] /p
