Matteo Berrettini had to stop playing in the middle of his Miami Open showdown with Andy Murray after he almost fainted on the court. There have already been worrying scenes involving players in Miami this week due to the hot and humid conditions. And Berrettini took a sudden turn while serving to stay in the second set.
After taking the opening set 6-4, Berrettini found himself in trouble in the second after being broken by Murray. The former world No. 6 stepped up to serve to stay in it at 2-5 when he suddenly turned and doubled over, stopping himself from faiting.
The umpire immediately noticed the issue, calling the physio as the Italian retreated to his bench looking shaken and holding his head. There was a delay of more than four minutes as the doctor also came to the court, taking Berrettini’s blood pressure.
The former Wimbledon finalist tried to re-energise himself by taking some gels as the doctor and physio spoke with him. “So unexpected, wasn’t it?” Tim Henman said on commentary. “I mean Berrettini has been playing good tennis and moving well and all of a sudden looked extremely wobbly on his feet.”
Annabel Croft noted that the weather wasn’t as hot as it had been earlier in the week when Arthur Cazaux collapsed on court during his qualifying match and had to retire. “Very worrying scenes. I mean honestly I’ve never seen anyone look as though they were about to keel over and wondered what was going on,” she told Sky Sports.
“I thought he was going to faint but he did well to steady himself and not fall down, crash into the surface where he might have really done some damage to his body or his head. You don’t know why that came over so quickly, didn’t it? You talked about the conditions at the start of the day and Laura was telling us it wasn’t quite as hot and humid as it had been during the qualifying where we heard about another player that nearly fainted.”
Gigi Salmon also noted that Berrettini was playing his first ATP Tour match since August last year. The 27-year-old competed in last week’s Phoenix Challenger and reached the final but his showdown with Murray was his first outing at tour level since the US Open.
