After the victory of Inter earlier in the evening, the responsibility on Napoli was to restore their benefits in the race for the Scudetto.
And the partenopei started to start quickly and came close to the opener within five minutes when Matteo pole inner from the right and an attempt hit in the pile.
The home team continued to dominate and the impasse breaker arrived properly on the quarter hour after a slick passing movement.
From the back, the men of Antonio Conte cut through the defense of Genoa, with Scott McTominay that Romelu Lukaku shot through, and despite the fact that they had a lot to do, the Belgian applied a clinical finish with his weaker right foot.
Napoli seemed to build on their early lead, and almost doubled when Giovanni di Lorenzo Giacomo Raspadori chose the box, but the attacker's shot was transferred by Benjamin Sieglist.
Genoa took a while to get going, but when they did, the backline of Napoli was under pressure. First, Andrea Pinamonti went against the bar against a vitinha-free kick, before another delivery in the Napoli box caused destruction and led to the equalizer.
This time it was Junior Messiah who caused the damage, with his delivery of Honest Ahanor, who sustained target, so that Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret unintentionally palmed the ball and his knee in his own net backwards.
Conte's men came out for the second half and had several options to restore their lead. Lukaku almost doubled his count within a few minutes after the restart after locking a long ball and shooting from outside the box, but Sieglist succeeded in bringing the effort to safety.
The Genoa Stopper then denied Raspadori on his nearby pole, with the ball amazingly saved between his legs. The partenopei was not deterred by the determined stopper and their perseverance has been ppoted after the hour.
Again, McTominay was the maker, cuts from the left and chose Raspadori, who took a touch before flowing the ball home to restore Napoli's lead.
With their lead restored, the home team looked to protect the points, and that encouraged a wave of Genoa attacks. And that came back to bite the hosts while the men of Patrick Vieira have leveled the score for the second time in the night.
Napoli did not succeed in tackling another cross, with the ball from Aaron Martin home from Johan Vasquez.
In the end, that goal turned out to be crucial because the points were shared after the deceased header of Philip Billing was widely driven, and the result was undoubtedly celebrated in Milan, with the gap between Napoli and Inter at only one point with two games.
Flash score Man of the match: Scott McTominay (Napoli)
View all match statistics with flash score.