Home favourite Luciano Darderi battled past Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-0 in a three-hour \u2060epic that stretched into the early hours of Thursday to reach the Italian Open semi-finals and extend the best Masters 1000 \u200crun of his career.<\/p>\n
Fresh from a statement victory over second seed Alexander Zverev<\/a> in \u200cthe previous round, the Italian carried his momentum into a late-night \u200cquarter-final on Campo Centrale<\/a>, where a lively crowd stayed despite rain delays \u200cpushing the schedule deep into the evening.<\/p>\n The match was also briefly \u200csuspended in the opening set after smoke from fireworks at the neighbouring Stadio Olimpico, hosting the Coppa Italia final between Inter Milan and Lazio, drifted across the \u200cForo Italico.<\/p>\n The haze reduced visibility and temporarily disrupted \u2060the tournament’s electronic line-calling system. \u200cWhen play resumed, Darderi<\/a> recovered from 2-5 down in the tiebreak to snatch \u200bthe opening set in front of the home fans.<\/p>\n The 18th seed appeared on course for a straightforward finish after racing into \u200ba 3-0 lead in the second set, but Jodar<\/a> responded impressively to level the contest. The Spaniard saved two match points, held for \u20605-5, then broke again \u200bbefore serving out the set to force a decider.<\/p>\n The effort appeared to take its toll on 19-year-old Jodar in the third, as he dropped serve twice and Darderi reasserted control to close out the win.<\/p>\n “I think \u200cit’s the best win of my career because of the crowd and everything here in Rome,” Darderi said in his on-court interview.<\/p>\n “First time in the semi-finals, it’s a dream to play here. It was difficult because we started around 11, the court was very slow … I just kept fighting and I’m very happy about that.”<\/p>\n Darderi will face Casper Ruud<\/a> in the semi-finals after the Norwegian beat Russia’s Karen Khachanov<\/a> 6-1, 1-6, 6-2<\/a> earlier on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Ruud appeared firmly in control after racing \u200cthrough the opening set before rain suspended the match early in \u200bthe second for nearly two-and-a-half hours.<\/p>\n The lengthy interruption allowed Khachanov to \u200cregroup and swing the momentum, with the Russian levelling the match after striking 11 winners and committing just one unforced error in the second set.<\/p>\n Ruud steadied himself in the third and delighted the crowd by striking a stunning tweener on his way to \u2060sealing victory and reaching the \u2060semi-finals in Rome for the \u200cfirst time since 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Home favourite Luciano Darderi battled past Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-0 in a three-hour \u2060epic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-583926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}