Tokyo serves up a tasty match right out of the gate as Italy’s Matteo Berrettini faces Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the first round on Thursday. Davidovich Fokina is coming off a title in Chengdu.
Last year, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina made four finals but walked away without a title to his name. This year, the floodgates have finally opened for the 27 year-old Spaniard. He snagged his first career title in Mallorca and a second one on Tuesday in Chengdu.
Ordinarily you could say that a player like that was on roll -0 but the problem is that it’s an awful lot of tennis to play back-to-back. ADF only gets a day to rest before he takes the court against Matteo Berrettini at the Japan Open on Thursday.
Prior to arriving in Chengdu, Davidovich Fokina had not played a match since July — when a back injury shut him down following an appearance on the red clay of Umag. He came back in Chengdu like he had never left, dispatching Nikoloz Basilashvili, Alexandre Muller, and Juan Manuel Cerundolo before beating Hubert Hurkacz 6-4, 7-6(7) in the final. The world No. 26 held all 11 of his service games against Hurkacz and won 87 percent of his first-serve points. That’s his second title of 2026 after Mallorca, and it snaps a streak of four straight losses in hard-court finals. ADF says Mallorca released “all the bad energy” he had in finals and that he now knows how to handle the tight moments.
Berrettini, meanwhile, is still searching for his hard-court game. The Italian’s best tennis this year has come on clay and he won just two matches across the North American summer swing before falling to Mariano Navone in the second round of the U.S. Open. He hasn’t played a match since that result. Hard courts are Berrettini’s weak spot. He has historically played his best on the natural surfaces and struggled with the wear and tear of the punishing hard-court seasons.
It’s a bit tricky to call given ADF’s probable fatigue and Berrettini’s rust, but I’m giving the nod to the Spaniard.
Cheryl pick: Davidovich Fokina in 3
Ricky pick: Berrettini in 3
WWW?
congratulations to me
That was getting near vintage Berrettini, very gutsy.