Kyle Edmund has been eliminated from the Rome Masters after losing in straight sets to Alexander Zverev at the third-round stage.
However, the 7-5 7-6 scoreline does not tell the whole story as Edmund saved seven match points before finally losing out to the world number three.
The opening stages of the contest belonged to Zverev who established a break advantage, but when serving for the set, the German dropped serve before regaining it immediately to move closer to the last eight.
Zverev struck at the start of the second and it appeared that Edmund would quickly find himself out of the tournament, but the British number one showed a spirit to match his excellent form of the past month.
After breaking back to force a tie-break, Edmund battled on gamely to save seven match points to deny Zverev a place in the quarter-finals, but the second seed ultimately proved too strong to move closer to a second successive Masters Series crown.
Darren Plant
