For his first match since Monte-Carlo, Berrettini beat Safiullin in 2 hours 55 minutes in Stuttgart

Italian Matteo Berrettini edged out Russian Roman Safiullin, the No 8 seed, 7-6 (8), 5-7, 7-5 to reach the second round of the Stuttgart Open at Tennisclub Weissenhof Stuttgart on Tuesday.

“I don’t have any energy left. First match after a few months. I was hoping for something easier. I think I’m really proud of how I fought on court. The tennis wasn’t my best but I didn’t expect anything different after not playing for months. It’s never easy to come back and play well.”

Berrettini, ranked No 95, will play the winner of the match between French qualifier Matteo Martineau and Canadian wildcard Denis Shapovalov next.

Stuttgart ATP 250, other first-round results (Tennisclub Weissenhof Stuttgart, grass, EUR 734.915, most recent results first):

• Flavio Cobolli vs. Jan-Lennard Struff
• Marcos Giron vs. Andy Murray
• Matteo Martineau vs. Denis Shapovalov: tuesday
• Arthur Rinderknech beat Alex Michelsen: 6-4, 7-5
• Brandon Nakashima beat Christopher Eubanks: 7-6 (4), 6-4
• James Duckworth (Q) beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert (Q): 6-4, 7-6 (2)
• Lorenzo Musetti (5) beat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (Q): 7-6 (9), 7-6 (9)
• Hamad Medjedovic (WC) beat Fabian Marozsan: 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-4
• Yannick Hanfmann beat Henri Squire (WC): 6-3, 6-3
• Dominik Koepfer beat Zhizhen Zhang: 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6)
• Jack Draper (6) beat Sebastian Ofner: 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5)