Call him “The Hammer.” Or Champion. Either one is fine.
Matteo Berrettini closed the first edition of Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown with a dramatic sudden death victory over “The Greek God” Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The new event, which featured a four-quarter format and innovations such as player cards each quarter (for example, players could get triple the points of if they hit a winner when they selected the “winner x 3” card) and multiple on-court interviews per match, ended with a bang, as the Italian saved two championship points before defeating Tsitsipas to take the crown.
Tsitsipas had won his previous four sudden death matches, and was the only player at the five-week event to manage a win when he trailed two quarters to love. He did it three times in total, but his attempt to do it a fourth ended when Berrettini hit a screaming passing shot winner to close the contest.
The event featured four Top 10 players in total—Berrettini, Tsitsipas, David Goffin and Dominic Thiem—and also veterans Richard Gasquet and Feliciano Lopez.
No fans were in attendance and social distancing protocols were in place.
The format brought out the best in the personalities of the players and Tsitsipas had a good time with things all week. He even took a crack at singing a few times during interviews.