Fabio Fognini and Salvatore Caruso clearly still hadn’t had enough of their all-Italian second-round duel at the Australian Open even after four hours and five sets.
A heated exchange started at the net after the 16th-seeded Fognini rallied from 5-1 down in the tiebreaker to win the first match between two Italian men at the Australian Open in the professional era. Fognini won 4-6, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (12).
The initial exchanged seemed to cool down as the players went back to their courtside chairs but restarted twice. A tournament official eventually intervened to break them up.
Fognini wasn’t in any mood to apologise at his post-match news conference. He said he wouldn’t discuss the exchange and that he and Caruso are good friends and will speak soon.
The 33-year-old Fognini and the 28-year-old Caruso have never played against each other at tour level but were practising together last month.
Fognini says it’s tough “when you play against a guy from the same country.”
“We just had some different opinions. I think this is something that should stay in the locker room, and I will speak with him because we are friends. So we just have different opinions and we will talk about it in the next few days.”
Fognini apparently told Caruso he’d been lucky during the match.
