Sonego Backs Up Djokovic Win, Earns Shot At Vienna Title
Lorenzo Sonego earned what he called, “the best victory of my life” on Friday against Novak Djokovic. His confidence showed on Saturday, when the World No. 42 played impressive tennis to reach the Erste Bank Open final.
The Italian, competing in his first ATP 500 semi-final in Vienna, defeated British No. 1 Daniel Evans 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 21 minutes to set a final clash against red-hot Russian Andrey Rublev.
“I’m really happy,” Sonego said in his on-court interview. “After yesterday it was not easy playing against Evans because he has a good talent. He has a good backhand and it was not easy. But today I won and I am so happy.”
The 25-year-old lost in the final round of qualifying against Aljaz Bedene six days ago, but he entered the draw as a lucky loser when Diego Schwartzman withdrew. Sonego is the first lucky loser to reach the Vienna final since home favourite Andreas Haider-Maurer in 2010.
“It’s amazing. I started this tournament [by losing] in the qualies. It’s not easy after losing my [qualifying] match to win four matches and now I got to the final,” Sonego said. “I don’t have any expectations. I go with confidence and I [will] try to do my best tomorrow.”
Sonego had never previously played Evans, but he managed to outsmart one of the best tacticians on the ATP Tour. The Briton has eight Top 20 victories this season, many of which he has earned by getting players out of their comfort zone with his intelligent use of angles and spins.
[WATCH LIVE 1]But Sonego set the tone with big hitting early to prevent Evans from finding his own rhythm, and the Italian consistently used his forehand drop shot throughout the match to keep his 30-year-old opponent off balance. Entering this event, Sonego had lost 10 consecutive tour-level matches on hard courts.
“This week I’ve improved my tennis for sure. I improved my return, my serve,” Sonego said. “I worked so hard and now I have the confidence to win this match and the experience. I needed to [get] some experience.”
Evans attempted to shake things up as the match wore on, even throwing in serve-and-volley attempts and charging the net early in points. But Sonego had an answer for everything Evans threw at him, winning 78 per cent of his service points and breaking serve three times to triumph.
Sonego will meet Rublev for the first time in their ATP Head2Head series on Sunday. Rublev is pursuing his fifth ATP Tour title of the season, while Sonego is trying to lift the second tour-level trophy of his career.