Nordea Open: Darderi overcomes top seed, sets up summit clash with De Jong

Bastad (Sweden), July 19 (IANS) Luciano Darderi of Italy dug deep into his energy reserves to upset top seed Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina to pull off his maiden Top-20 victory and book a final spot in the Nordea Open here on Saturday.

The Italian overcame top seed Cerundolo 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(3) in hot conditions at the Swedish ATP 250 to reach his third tour-level championship match. Darderi rallied from 2-4 in the final set to prevail in a match featuring 11 breaks of serve, according to Infosys ATP Stats. This helped him set up a Sunday final against Jesper de Jong.

“Playing against Francisco is always very tough. Today I played an amazing match, but in front of me I had one of the best players in the world,” said Darderi in his on-court interview. “It’s never easy to play against a friend, too, but I played a great match. I fought until the last point, and I think that was the key to the match today.”

Darderi had dropped just six games across his previous two matches in Bastad, against Elias Ymer and Sebastian Baez, respectively. Yet there was nothing straightforward about the Italian’s victory against World No. 20 Cerundolo, even after he raced through the opening set.

Darderi was broken twice in the second set and twice more early in the third set, but he regained his edge to complete a comeback win, his biggest by ATP Ranking.

With his two-hour, 34-minute win, Darderi avenged his defeats to Cerundolo in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in the year 2025 and levelled the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 2-2. He will step on court Sunday with a 2-0 record in ATP Tour finals after his triumphs in Cordoba last year and Marrakech in April.

Darderi will be up against De Jong in the final after the Dutchman earlier defeated Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-3, 7-6(3). It will be a maiden ATP Tour title match for the 25-year-old Dutchman, whose run in Bastad so far has propelled him 23 spots to No. 83 in the ATP Live Rankings.

"It's better than my coach, because he was a semi-finalist here in 2013, and now I did better than him, so I won't forget it," joked De Jong about his coach Thiemo de Bakker in his on-court interview. "I'm very happy to be in my first ATP final. I was a little bit shaky at the end at 6-5, but that happens, and it turned out great."

--IANS

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