An azure-blue tennis fairytale takes over Wimbledon

Italy is a football nation, Calcio a kind of religion. At least that’s what people thought until recently, and until “i piccoli svizzeri”, the little Swiss, dominated the Squadra Azzurra in the European Championship round of 16 and sent them back to the “Belpaese” early. The Italians tend to react violently to defeats by their footballers. There was a time when particularly hot-blooded Tifosi reacted to disappointments by their national team by simply throwing the television out of the window. Get rid of it, it only brings Berlusconi propaganda and other disasters anyway.

Tempi passati, because today this machine, which is called the rather awkward “ti vu” in Italian, is used to play some really uplifting and impressive games. For example, tennis. This sport, which for a long time was only played by tourists on the beaches of the Adriatic, has spread across the whole country. The reason for this is a lanky, red-blond South Tyrolean who contradicts all the clichés that the Swiss and Germans have about Italians.

Jannik Sinner has turned men’s tennis on its head this year. In January he won the Australian Open, and later the titles in Rotterdam, Miami and Halle. In Paris he replaced Novak Djokovic at the top of the world rankings. Since then he has been the ultimate benchmark in this business, which until recently was based on Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

At Wimbledon, Sinner’s winning streak ended in the quarterfinals against the Russian Daniil Medvedev. He was not feeling well physically. He had vomited the morning before the match. After the third set, he briefly left the court because he was dizzy. Nevertheless, he did not consider giving up.

Jannik Sinner is one of the most popular players on the tour and unites the north and south of Italy as few athletes have done before him. His games regularly achieve ratings that are otherwise only achieved by the footballers of the “commissario tecnico” Luciano Spalletti.

If Sinner fails, Musetti will shine

The South Tyrolean would never look for an excuse after a defeat to diminish the success of his opponent. After losing the match against Medvedev on Tuesday, he said: “Daniil played brilliantly and I actually wanted to stay on the pitch. But my physio told me it would be better if I quickly went to the dressing room and took something for the nausea.”

The eagerly awaited semi-final duel on Friday against the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz has therefore been cancelled. Instead of Sinner, Lorenzo Musetti will now be flying the flag for Italy at Wimbledon. Like Sinner, he is 22 years old and, like him, a product of the excellent work that the Italian Tennis Association has done in recent years.

Musetti comes from a down-to-earth background. His family comes from the Tuscan town of Carrara, which is famous for its snow-white marble and where the legendary soccer goalie Gianluigi Buffon grew up. When Musetti’s family travels to a tennis tournament, they usually do so by train. They stay in simple Airbnb accommodations rather than five-star hotels.

Musetti’s talent is well known. But so far he has been in the shadow of Sinner and Matteo Berrettini, who reached the final against Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon in 2020 and really sparked the tennis euphoria in Italy. On Friday, Djokovic will also be the last player separating Musetti from his first major final.

These are exciting moments for the Italian tennis journalist Ubaldo Scanagatta. The cheerful Florentine is something of a legend in the tennis scene and was for a long time Italy’s best-known contribution to the ATP tour. For decades he has traveled around the world for his website “Ubitennis”. At media conferences he always sits in the front row and then asks the players complicated questions with a strong accent. This has attracted the attention of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

At the Australian Open, Ubaldo Scanagatta paid tribute to his age and the strains of traveling at a Rafael Nadal media conference and suddenly nodded off. When he was woken up by the noise in the media room at the end of the question and answer session, Nadal asked him with a laugh: “Did you have a nice dream, Ubaldo?”

Play, play and play again

Scanagatta must actually feel almost like he’s in a dream at the moment. His Italians are shaking up the tennis circus. When asked what the secret of this success is, he answers laconically: “il lavoro”, work. It can’t be that alone. The others work too.

However, the Italian association has invested a lot of money in large and small tournaments with the help of generous funds from the National Olympic Committee (Coni). In simple terms, the Italian recipe for success is: play, play and play again.

There is hardly a region in Italy that does not host at least one smaller ATP or WTA tournament. The association has thus created many playing opportunities for younger, not quite as successful players. Sinner played his first Challenger tournament in 2018 at the age of 17 in Milan, Musetti the following year in Bergamo. In his first year on the professional tour he played 17 tournaments, 16 of them on home soil, where he easily got wild cards.

Every year, Italy hosts 14 ITF, 17 Challenger competitions and the Masters 1000 tournament in Rome. In addition, the ATP finals have been held in Turin since 2021 and will continue to be held until 2025. By comparison, Switzerland hosts three ATP and two Challenger and ITF tournaments each.

The Italian model is now being imitated by more and more people. Swiss Tennis is also following the tactic of offering its own players as many opportunities as possible.

But Italian tennis is not just about men. Jasmine Paolini is also an Italian in the women’s Wimbledon final. A month ago, the 28-year-old had already reached the final at Roland-Garros. In her 17 previous major tournaments, she had been eliminated in the first round ten times. Now, after her dramatic semi-final victory on Thursday over almost three hours against Donna Vekic, she is also in Saturday’s Wimbledon final. There she will face the Czech Barbora Krejcikova. In an on-court interview, the Italian said: “I will never forget this match for the rest of my life.” She is not alone in this. Not just Ubaldo, the whole of Italy continues to dream.