Granollers/Zeballos Oust Two-Time Defending Champs Mektic/Pavic | ATP Tour

Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos held their nerve for an exciting first-round upset on Sunday on the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

The Spanish-Argentine pairing snapped the 10-match successful streak in Rome of fifth seeds and Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic with a 7-6(6), 3-6, 10-8 victory on the clay-court ATP Masters 1000.

Granollers and Zeballos appeared to have misplaced their momentum once they misplaced 5 straight factors to let a 6/2 lead slip within the Match Tie-break, however they held agency for a one-hour, 46-minute win towards the 2021 and 2022 champions.

There have been no such issues for high seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski or second seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury. Koolhof and Skupski defeated Matwe Middelkoop and Andreas Mies 6-7(3), 6-3, 10-4 whereas Ram and Salisbury beat Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 6-3, 6-2.