The Foro Italico (Italian Forum) was up to its name last week while Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini gave home fans a local hero to encourage the two single finals to the Italian Open. The sinner can end an expectation of almost five decades for an Italian winner of the male tournament in Rome, with Adriano Panatta in 1976, the last man to win the title for a home player. The world number one faces the Carlos Alcaraz rival in a successful final for tennis fans who saw the sinner return from his three -month doping ban to test positive twice in March for traces of Clostebol, contamination by the accepted doping authorities was accidental.
The 23 -year -old was the first Italian to win a Grand Chelem tournament since Panatta since 1976, when he won the Australian Open in January 2024.
He then became the first of his compatriots to win first place in the world ranking in June, then the first to win the Funded ATP final, claiming Glory in Turin.
But Sinner, already a winner of 19 titles, including Three Grand Chelem, is not the only one at the top of the match, as evidenced by Italy, winning both the Davis Cup and, led by Wimbledon and the finalist of Roland Garros, Paolini, the Billie Jean King Cup in 2024.
Italian men have won 31 ATP titles since the beginning of 2016, against only eight in the previous decade.
Lorenzo Musetti made his debut in the top 10 in the world ranking this week after reaching the final of Monte Carlo last month and going deep into other tournaments, including a race for the semi-finals in Rome.
Nine Italians, including Luciano Darderi and Flavio Cobolli – The winners in Marrakech and Bucharest the same week in March – appear in the male top 100. Only the United States and France have more with 10 each.
– Fifteen years in preparation –
At the beginning of the century, the best Italian was Andrea Gaudenzi in the 54th in the world, who is the current president of ATP, while the Italian male team played in the third level of the Davis Cup.
The renewal of Italian tennis began among its wives, with four Fed Cup victories between 2006 and 2013, the French title of Francesco Schiavone in 2010 and Flavia Pennetta at the US Open five years later.
And Paolini aims at her first trophy in the 100 series against the former champion of the United States Coco Gauff on Saturday evening, the first in Rome for an Italian woman from Raffaella Reggi in 1985.
But after a good performance by Fabio Fognini who became the first Italian to win a Masters 1000 tournament, in Monte Carlo in 2019, male tennis increased his game with the arrival of the Wimbledon 2021 Matteo Berrettini and Sinner finalist.
“This is the result of 15 years of good work within the federation (FitP), from clubs at the highest level and with a lot of international tournament in all ages,” said former number seven Spanish World Cup Emilio Sanchez, now a coach.
“They decentralized the organization of their structure for young people. Before everyone had to go through a national training center and be removed from their family environment. Now the Federation goes to players and finance.”
Filippo Volandri, the head of the high -level male tennis training for FitP, says that decentralization, a large network of coaches and access from the youngest to physical and mental coaches, allows “all young players to express their potential.
“This is the big difference between what we have done before, when we saw that Italian players have matured late or have never reached their full potential,” said Volandri.
The FitP, directed since 2001 by Angelo Binaghi, also implemented a plan to build hard shorts in a country dominated by clay, a decision which was also accompanied by a change in the style of play and the training.
“We prioritize tactics in relation to the technique, and to serve and return before repetitive coaching of coupled or backhand blows,” Michelangelo Delledera, director of the FitP training institute, told AFP.
JR / CHC / TD / EA
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Subjects mentioned in this article
Jasmine Paolini
Tennis
