Berrettini vs Navone — a comeback on the right surface against a clay-courter on the wrong one

Preview · National Bank Open, Montréal (ATP Masters 1000) · First round · 2 August 2026

Matteo Berrettini has not hit a competitive ball since 3 June. That is the fact around which this match organises itself. The Italian was in the middle of his best fortnight in years when his body intervened, and Montréal is where he finds out what survived. Navone is a reasonable test — except that he is a clay-courter asked to do it on a fast hard court, against a man who has beaten him three times out of three.

The matchup

Berrettini is 30, Italian, hovering around the top-fifty mark, a long way from the career high of 6 he reached before injuries rewrote his trajectory. His 2026 was solid rather than spectacular until Roland Garros, where it became something more: he beat Marton Fucsovics, Arthur Rinderknech, Francisco Comesana in a five-setter that ended 7-6(13) in the decider, and Juan Manuel Cerundolo to reach the quarter-finals. There he retired against Matteo Arnaldi, trailing 5-7 2-5, and has not played since. Earlier he made the third round in Miami, beating Alexandre Muller and Alexander Bublik.

Navone is 25, Argentine, ranked inside the world’s top seventy-five with a career high of 29. His has been a clay season with hard-court interruptions. He reached the final in Bucharest in April, beating Christopher O’Connell, Alex Molcan and Botic van de Zandschulp before Daniel Merida Aguilar edged him, and made the third round in Rome with wins over Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime. On hard courts he has done comparatively little damage.

The head-to-head reads three matches, three Berrettini wins, most recently at the Cagliari Challenger this spring, 7-5 6-3, and before that at Monte Carlo in 2025.

Form & conditions

Berrettini’s form is a hypothesis rather than a fact. Two months is long enough for a serve to lose its calibration and short enough that the underlying quality should still be there. The consolation is that Montréal suits him: a big, flat first serve and a forehand that takes time away are worth more on a quick outdoor hard court than anywhere else. Whether he stands up to a physical third set after eight weeks off is another question.

Navone has been playing, which counts for something, but his best tennis comes on surfaces where he can slide, defend and let rallies run to fifteen shots. Take that away and his margins shrink. He returns well enough to trouble a rusty server, and that is his opening.

The deciding factor

Whether Berrettini’s serve holds up. If it does, the match is short and one-sided, because Navone has no reliable answer to that delivery on this surface and has never found one in three attempts. If the first-serve percentage sags and the Italian must play extended rallies from the back, Navone’s court coverage and match sharpness become the dominant variables in a hurry.

The call

The lean is Berrettini, because the surface, the weapons and the whole history of this pairing point the same way, with confidence at low-medium — a two-month layoff is exactly the sort of thing that makes a preview look foolish, and his recent injury record does nothing to settle the nerves.