Novak Upsets Fognini To Give Austria 1-0 Edge Against Italy

Dennis Novak earned one of the biggest wins of his career on Tuesday, defeating Fabio Fognini 6-3, 6-2 to give Team Austria a 1-0 lead against Team Italy in Group C play at the ATP Cup.

One year ago, the 27-year-old Novak played three three-setters in this event, losing two of those clashes. But the World No. 100 wasted no time putting his country ahead inside John Cain Arena, upsetting the World No. 17 after one hour and 12 minutes behind exemplary aggression and net play.

"It was a long wait for today. I've practised since the beginning of December already, so I was really looking forward to today," Novak said in his on-court interview. "I was nervous, didn't sleep that well. I think you could see that in my first service game. I [gave] a really easy break, but then I tried to fight in the game and then I played pretty solid."

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In the very early stages of the match, it appeared Fognini, who is the fourth-highest-ranked No. 2 singles player in the competition, was firing on all cylinders. The nine-time ATP Tour titlist broke the Austrian’s serve in the first game and quickly earned a 30/0 advantage in his first service game.

But the unforced errors began to add up for the Italian, who was broken for 1-1. Once he let slip his early advantage, the tone of the match changed. Novak played aggressively and sprinted into net on numerous occasions, while Fognini was unable to find his rhythm from the baseline.

"Of course it's never easy to play Fabio. You never know what's coming," Novak said. "I was focussing on myself and I think I did a good job."

The Italian star, who cracked the Top 10 of the FedEx ATP Rankings in 2019, was under pressure throughout the match. When Fognini tried to go for his shots to turn the tide, he often missed the mark, making 38 unforced errors. Novak, who only struck 13 unforced errors, continued to unleash big forehand returns to maintain the pressure. The Austrian broke serve four times in his victory.

World No. 3 Dominic Thiem will try to clinch the tie for Austria in the No. 1 singles match against fellow Top 10 star Matteo Berrettini. They have split their four previous ATP Head2Head meetings.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/3atgpam