Vincenzo Mastrangelo: “We’ve made one little step forward – he said after the opening victory of a series to be played on the best of five against Sora – The first two sets have been extremely difficult. And now it will be as tough in their gym, but we have to go there with a firm intention to play our game with limited mistakes, a lot of composure and good decision making”.

Riccardo Pinelli: “We’ve won the first battle, but there still a long way to go in this war. We made too many mistakes on the serve at the start but we did a great job of staying composed and get back in it. Then we found the winning spurt at the end of a tight set, while we learnt from past mistakes in the third as the flow of our game kept improving”.