Matteo Berrettini is finally back on the tennis courts, and he’ll attempt to restart his career at the ATP Challenger tournament in Phoenix.
After being away from the tennis courts since his second-round retirement at the 2023 US Open in August of last year, it seems that the Italian is ready to jump back into action, and he chose an ATP Challenger tournament for that.
Running in the same week as the season’s first ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, the Arizona Tennis Classic is usually attended by players who made an early exit from the Masters tournament.
Therefore, it usually has one of the strongest fields for a Challenger tournament, and that’s proven by the fact that the top seed is the world no. 34, Christopher Eubanks, who will play against the 2022 Australian Open doubles champion, Thanasi Kokkinakis in the opening round.
Therefore, it’s questionable whether the tournament will really give Berrettini many easy matches, but two things are certain, and that’s the fact that he’ll avoid drawing the likes of Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, and that players competing in Phoenix are certainly not in their top form, as they had to lose early in Indian Wells to compete at the event.
The 2021 Wimbledon finalist also learned his path to the title, and it certainly won’t be an easy journey, as the Italian wild card will start against Hugo Gaston from France, possibly taking on either the eighth-seeded Arthur Cazaux or a qualifier in the second round.
Should he succeed in his first two matches, Berrettini would take on either the second-seeded Sebastian Ofner, or one of the three qualifiers in the section in the quarterfinals, and his semifinal match could be against compatriot Fabio Fognini or the likes of Yannick Hanfmann and Aleksandar Vukic, who was exactly the player who drew Djokovic in Indian Wells.
In the final, Berrettini could face anyone from Eubanks and Kokkinakis, to the likes of Luca Van Assche, Roman Safiullin, Benoit Paire, and Hamad Medjedovic. The tournament runs from March 12th to 17th, in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.