It was supposed to be Matteo Berrettini’s day. The Foro Italico, where the home fans were cheering him on, and a first-round opponent who had only won four matches this season, Alexei Popyrin. The script was simple. Then there was a vibration dampener the size of a coin, and everything changed. 

Berrettini was in trouble after dropping the first set 6-2. He was returning Popyrin’s serve in the first game of the second set, and he was holding the rally and whacked a forehand that got the Australian scrambling in the corner. However, while Popyrin went to pick it up, his vibration dampener flew off the racket and slid across the court. Chair umpire Aurelie Tourte ruled the return a let after Popyrin’s shot went wide. Berrettini’s break point just went away. 

The Italian wasn’t happy about it. The crowd roared boos and whistles as he marched straight to the umpire’s chair. “It’s never let, it’s never let,” he told Tourte. The umpire explained her reasoning clearly. “The dampening device flew from there to the net, so we play a let,” she said. “I saw it. If I don’t see it, I don’t call it.” Berrettini pushed back. “It’s part of the racket, so it’s never a let,” he argued. Tourte held her ground. “Yes, it is. But if I don’t see it, I don’t call it.”

Then Popyrin came into the discussion on the net, having retrieved his dampener. He was sympathetic but said that the call was made before he hit the ball. “I would have given you the point if she didn’t say let,” he told Berrettini, “but she said let just before I hit my forehand.” The incident was a rare moment of sportsmanship in the middle of a heated exchange, but it did little to quell the home favorite’s frustration. 

Commentator Naomi Broady captured the mood at the Foro Italico perfectly. “You can understand the frustration,” she said. “Feels like that would have given him a break point.” Her co-commentator Lee Goodall pointed out just how unusual the decision was. “I can’t remember a let being called” for a vibration damper falling off a racket, he said, is an incident that usually goes unnoticed because the vibration dampers typically bounce to the side of the court. It was Tourte’s clear sightline and the dampener’s bright color that made this case different. “Aurelie Tourte obviously noticed it quickly, felt she had to step in,” Goodall said.

But technically, the chair umpire was right. There is a let call available in the ATP rulebook for an object entering the court during a point, and a vibration dampener skidding mid-court is acceptable.

The let call came at a pivotal moment when Berrettini had momentum, had the crowd’s support and pressure on him, which could have possibly set the course for the second set. Unfortunately, how things turned out in the first game itself, the Australian comfortably sealed the second set as well, and knocked out the Italian on his home turf 6-2, 6-3. 

Alexei Popyrin advances to face Jakub Mensik in round two

Popyrin’s fifth victory of 2026 reflects how difficult his season has been. The former world No. 19 was in Rome with a 4-12 record for the season, recently having been beaten in his opening game in Madrid by Martin Damm a fortnight earlier. The victory on Campo Centrale of a home favourite, aside from any controversy, will be good for his confidence. 

The 26-year-old was interviewed on court following the game about a reset and the significance of this win in Rome for the rest of his tournament. Popyrin has the game to go deep on clay when conditions align. He is 14th on tour with a serve rating on clay over the past 52 weeks, has a serve rate of 84.5%, and is averaging 8.7 aces per match. It was the building block of everything against Berrettini. 

In round two, he has a much tougher challenge. Jakub Mensik, the 26th seed, is one of the most promising youngsters in the game and has already proved that he is a player of Masters quality on clay this season, as he awaits on May 9. For Popyrin, it’s an opportunity to make Rome the pivot his 2026 campaign sorely requires.

Berrettini’s questions are still the same. After a series of injuries, he’s dropped from the top six to 100th in the world, but his status when healthy is still above that. He built momentum for himself in Monte-Carlo, going on to win a double-bagel over Daniil Medvedev before making it to the Cagliari Challenger quarterfinals last week. The shape was present in fragments. It didn’t gel at the Foro Italico. 

The loss stings with Roland Garros weeks away. The dampener issue will be front-page news. However, the bigger worry for Berrettini is that he loses a straight set to a player who has only won a handful of matches this year, and he was on the court on which he is best loved and expected to perform. He was treated to a big welcome, and he could not provide them with what they had come to see.