Nadal Rallies Past Qualifier Bergs At Rome Masters; Djokovic, Zverev Fri.

Rafael Nadal went down early but like the champion he is, rallied to defeat qualifier Zizou Bergs 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 Thursday afternoon at the Rome Masters.

“It was not my best match. I was practicing better than how I played today without a doubt but I found a way to win,” Nadal said. “That is so important at the beginning of the tournament. My game is more unpredictable than before. I didn’t play much tennis for the past two years, so it is up and down. I think I can do much better than I did today and hope I can do it in the next round.”

Nadal was able to break to start the second to go up 2-0 and then broke for 2-1 in the third. The 10-time Romer winner will now face Hubert Hurkacz on Saturday.

“I need to try to play at my hundred per cent. It’s not easy because I need to lose a little bit of fear that I have in some shots because, for example, in Brisbane I got a tear on the place that I had the surgery last year,” added Nadal. “Sometimes important surgery like I had, I had to remove an important part of my psoas tendon, a lot of muscles around work more than before. It’s about having the right time to adapt all these muscles to this new configuration of the hip. But I don’t have that much time. That’s the problem and that’s the truth.”

Italians Mateo Arnaldi and Fabio Fognini were also big winners on Thursday.

Friday, the seeds from the top half take the court in second round play and that includes Novak Djokovic. The 6-time winner who is still seeking a first title of the year will meet Corentin Moutet.

Former winner Alexander Zverev collides with Aleksandar Vukic, No. 5 Casper Ruud squares off against Miomir Kecmanovic, No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov draws Yoshihito Nishioka and No. 11 Taylor Fritz faces Fognini.

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