Krawietz/Mies March Into Rome QFs

Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies continued their hot streak on the European clay at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome on Wednesday, when the all-German team ran out a 6-3, 6-3 winner over home wild cards Luca Nardi and Lorenzo Sonego.

The eighth seeds broke the Italians four times to complete a 77-minute second-round win at the ATP Masters 1000 event and reach the quarter-finals in the Italian capital for the first time. They will next face another Italian duo, Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, or Chilean-Croatian pair Julio Peralta and Franko Skugor.

Two-time Roland Garros champions Krawietz and Mies lifted their first tour-level title since October 2020 in Barcelona in April, and backed that triumph up a week later with another crown at their home tournament in Munich. Their first-round win over another Italian pair, Matteo Arnaldi and Francesco Passaro, was their first together in Rome, with the Germans having lost their only previous match at the Foro Italico in 2020.

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There was a big upset in the first-round action taking place on Wednesday as Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara defeated top-seeded pairing Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury, 7-6(5), 6-3. Glasspool and Heliovaara saved all three break points they faced on the way to a successful debut in Rome, where singles stars Thanasi Kokkinakis and Frances Tiafoe await in the second round.

There were no such problems for Mutua Madrid Open champions Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski, who moved to 31-7 for the season with an opening 6-4, 7-6(4) win over Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer. It is the third victory over Arevalo and Rojer this year for seventh-seeded Koolhof and Skupski, who also beat the El Salvadorian-Dutch duo at the Melbourne Summer Set in January and the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell in April.

In other opening-round matches, Ariel Behar and Gonzalo Escobar sealed a 6-7(2), 6-3, 10-5 win to upset sixth seeds Jamie Murray and Michael Venus, while Houston champions Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell beat Nikoloz Basilashvili and Alexander Bublik, 6-4, 6-1.