Huge sensation: Italian underdog eats Djokovic

Only sport writes such stories: Lorenzo Sonego actually shouldn't have competed in Vienna, but slipped into the main field as a lucky loser and now celebrated the greatest success of his career. In the quarterfinals, the world number 42 defeated the great Novak Djokovic. Although defeating is an understatement: the Turin player literally swept the world number 6 off the field with 2:6, 1:1 in around 70 minutes. In the semi-finals, the sensationalist will now face Briton Daniel Evans (ATP 33). Just there by chance The tournament in Vienna actually ended last Sunday for Lorenzo Sonego. In the second qualifying round, the 2-year-old lost to Slovenian Alijaz Bedene in three sets. But because Cologne finalist Diego Schwartzman canceled at the last minute, Sonego ended up in the main draw as a “lucky loser”. There, thanks to two confident victories against Dusan Lajovic and Hubert Hurkacz, he fought his way into the quarter-finals, where the currently best tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, was waiting. A clear thing, one might think. But in the end everything turned out differently.

Sonego played aggressively and courageously from the start, while Djokovic seemed slow, sedate and weak. When the young Italian promptly took both the 1st and 2nd serves from his opponent and it suddenly became 4-0, it was then that you noticed that a huge sensation was brewing. As a result, Sonego was extremely strong, especially on his own serve, and posed huge problems for the great Djokovic. The decisive game happened in the middle of the second set when the score was 2:2 for Sonego: Djokovic created 1 break chances, but was unable to take advantage of any and had to give up this game too. After that, the underdog left no stone unturned. Raised into a select circle After the match, Sonego could hardly believe it. “That was the most extraordinary game I have ever played in my career,” he said, visibly moved. With this victory, the 25-year-old made it into a select circle: before him, only 5 Italians had managed to win against the number 1. Fabio Fognini last achieved this feat against Andy Murray in Rome in 2017. Corrado Barazzutti (against Ilie Nastase), Adriano Panatta (twice against Jimmy Connors), Gianluca Pozzi (against Andre Agassi) and Filippo Volandri (against Roger Federer) were also able to triumph against the world ranking leader.

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Huge sensation: Italian underdog eats Djokovic

What a surprise: Novak Djokovic was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna (1,4 million euros in prize money) - and was literally eaten by an Italian.

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