Italy’s Fabio Fognini was delighted after beating Andy Murray by 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the opening round of Internazionali BNL d’Italia. The local lad came up with his best against the Brit and qualified for the second round of the Italian Open.

The Italian battled for two hours and 54 minutes but had the final laugh against the veteran. In fact, 2023 hasn’t been an ideal season so far for Fognini as he has had a 2-8 record on the tour and he was making a comeback after an injury.

With this win, Fognini improved his ATP H2H battle to 5-4 against Murray.

“For sure I’m happy because coming back from injury is never easy, especially at our age. But winning here in Rome against a really big player like Andy, I mean I’m happy,” Fognini said in his on-court interview.

“Now it’s important to recover and let’s see how I recover and I wake up tomorrow because it’s going to be tricky and a nice question to my mind if I will recover well. But I just want to enjoy this night and going home with this victory.”

The Italian added that he was in really good form at the start of the clay season but th injury hampered his progress. However, Fognini added that these types of wins will give him a shot in the arm.

“I was feeling really good at the beginning of the clay in Estoril, I was playing great. But I got injured and I stopped like a month, I was 10 days with the crutches,” Fognini said. “These kind of matches give me a lot of emotions and really good memories.”

Fognini will face 30th seed Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia in the second round and he will look to continue the good show in the Italian Open.