Adriano Panatta

"Tennis was invented by the Devil."

"(About the 1976 Rome Internationals) I didn't dedicate that victory to my father, my mother, my wife, or my son. I dedicated it to myself, and that's it!"

"That Federer is unique can be seen in the way he hits the ball, his change of pace, and the technical and tactical solutions he decides to adopt. He hits the ball hard, but he always does it the right way. In a classic way, but at the same time modern."

"What a guy, Bjorn: capable of emptying two bottles of vodka, lying down until morning, and then playing as if nothing had happened."

"It was Ignazio Pirastu, then head of the PCI Sports Commission, who brought us the unexpected news: according to Enrico Berlinguer, we had to go to Chile. And he wanted us to know it. For the secretary of the PCI, it would not have been right for the Cup to end up in the hands of Pinochet's Chile rather than ours. From then on, the road to departure was downhill. It was like a free-for-all. The Andreotti government said it would leave the decision up to CONI, which in turn left it up to the Federation, and we found ourselves in Santiago, free to win. Thanks to Berlinguer."

"However, I believe that Arthur revolutionized international tennis: he was the first black player to win, marking a radical turning point. I have been told of some clubs where black players were not even allowed to enter, so Ashe was very important in this sense."

"Lendl was a very strong player, one of the strongest of his era, but he wasn't good at playing tennis. [...] He was almost unbeatable at his peak, but he had obvious technical limitations: at the net, for example, he couldn't hit a single shot right."

"Tennis is ageless, is that perhaps the conclusion? Yes, it must be so... And Federer is tennis, so he too is ageless. There is a difference, and it shows. Federer does exactly what needs to be done with a racket in his hand. Not only that, he does it so well that it all seems logical, even easy."

"(About Lea Pericoli) Once, in Paris, while I was watching her from the stands near the court, I felt like saying to her, “Come on Lea, enough with these lobs, go to the net for once.” She replied doubtfully, “I'll try, but it would be the first time.” She went for it, slipped, fell, got her foot tangled in the net, started laughing, and of course insulted me, as only she knew how to do. The whole thing, amid laughter, went on for days."

"I have always been left-wing, but I don't like fanaticism or ideological excesses. In the end, I understand that Enrico Berlinguer had changed his mind. In any case, I wanted to go and win. The Chilean crowd was extraordinary, the best I've ever encountered, but the atmosphere was very heavy, oppressive."

"At the Roland Garros in particular, I played the best tennis of my life, after saving a match point with a dive and outclassing Borg in the quarterfinals. Sixty seconds of total fulfillment, of happiness, at the end of the final with Harold Solomon and then that was it. That evening, at the gala dinner, I remember feeling very sad. A sense of emptiness. Almost depression, which lasted three weeks."

"Björn Borg and Guillermo Vilas ruined a generation of players. Today, there are no more attacking players capable of softening the ball. Andre Agassi was the evolution of this tennis. He invented a new way of playing, the first baseliner. Today you find brutes wielding the racket. Tennis is something else. I watch Federer. He plays too well. He's deluded, he wants to beat that beast Nadal by playing good tennis. Impossible."

"Borg was a paranormal phenomenon. I always said he was a “calm madman.” His madness was well disguised. He spent all day adjusting the tension of his racket strings. One day or another you'll crack, I told him, your brain will explode. It did explode one day, after losing to McEnroe at Wimbledon. He retired at 26, when he was still the strongest of them all. He was fed up. Björn was a very funny man. He never had a penny in his pocket. He used American Express, but credit cards didn't exist in Italy at the time."

"Ilie Năstase was the nicest of them all, a great guy. He and Ion Tiriac were an irresistible pair on and off the court."

"In tennis, there is doping, as in almost all sports. I don't believe in athletes who are victims, who take things without knowing it. Then they are not victims, they are idiots. The truth is that they always catch who they want to catch. The political power of a nation counts for a lot."

"I couldn't be the role model. Panatta was pure talent. It's easier to follow someone like Björn Borg, keeping a kid training against a wall for four or five hours a day. But to condemn yourself to that amount of work, you needed the mind of someone like Borg. Italians are different, they need to have fun. Take two kids, one Swedish and one Italian, and put them in front of a wall to hit balls: after fifteen minutes, the Italian is already bored, while after six hours, you have to stop the Swede."

"To organize a tournament, you need to know the city where it takes place well. Rome is a big “slut”; my Internazionali tournaments combined sport and socializing, tennis champions and the Roman upper class."

"If you get to play at a world-class level, you can't afford to be lazy. I've suffered from the clichés that see Romans as champions of indolence. Look at Francesco Totti: he worked like crazy to get back in shape for the World Cup, and everyone is amazed. It happened when, after three months of tournaments, I felt the need to take a break and devote myself to other things. Tennis has never been a monomania for me. Even when I was at my peak, I liked to read, I kept myself informed: those were the years of lead."

"I've always been a champion in my own way. Today, stardom is rampant. I wonder how someone who plays soccer or wields a racket can feel like a phenomenon. When I hear one of them speak in the third person, it pisses me off. They have bodyguards. Maria Sharapova thinks she's Greta Garbo. Apart from Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who are two exceptional guys, the others are all very sad and very full of themselves."

"But if it is truly impossible to avoid making a choice or a ranking, then I would suggest abolishing all discussion about the number of wins, Slams, or the length of this or that tennis “reign,” and instead opening a folder and putting in it all the names of the innovators, those tennis players who were inevitably champions and who pushed tennis toward the future. They are the builders of our sport, and when discussing history or supremacy, we need to refer to them in order to better understand what came before and what came after. (p. 5)"

"(About Borg) A man of ice? Listen, only in appearance. On the court, however, he was a machine. With his bounce tennis, with those lobs that picked up speed when they hit the ground, he ended up giving a new dimension to the court. (p. 6)"

"McEnroe was an innovator for more subtle, yet important, and still relevant reasons. At a very particular moment in the growth of our sport, when there was a general tendency to turn it into a defensive game, among many uninspired imitators of Borg, he explained to everyone how attack was still an essential part of the game and set the tone for those who came after him, such as Becker and Stich, Stefan Edberg, and Patrick Rafter. John defined a concept of anticipation that was even greater than the current one: he anticipated not only his opponent's shots, but even their geometry. (p. 7)"

"Belarda was a real old fascist. [...] During our training camp in Formia, we watched political debates on TV. When Almirante spoke, he would ask for silence, “Everyone be quiet, I need to hear!”, and I would make noise. Then when Natta spoke, I would say, “Now I have to listen.” Or I would show up at the table with L'Unità. Then [...] with Il Manifesto. And Belarda would say, “What is this stuff? Put it away immediately!” And I would say, “What, can't we read the newspaper?”"

"Please, don't call it the Davis Cup anymore. We used to go and play in South Africa, Australia, India. The Davis Cup lasted all year and for us Europeans it was the most important thing, more than Wimbledon. [...] Now the Davis Cup lasts three days. Interviewer: What happened? Panatta: The more professional tennis became, the more money was earned in tournaments and with sponsors, the less players wanted to take on trips for the national team."

"(About Ilie Năstase) He called me Maccarone. He knew I was superstitious. We met in doubles at Roland Garros, me with Bertolucci, him with José-Luis Clerc, the Argentine. I was about to serve, I looked up, and I saw him with a black cat in his arms. Nastase had got himself a black cat and brought it onto the court. At Roland Garros."

"We had played an exhibition match in Buenos Aires and were supposed to play another one in Venezuela [...]. The plane broke down, we arrived in Caracas via Rio and Miami, we were exhausted. I proposed a deal to Ilie: there would be no prize money, everyone had already received their fee; we would play the first set for real; whoever won it would also win the second. He accepted, on one condition: “Don't hit me with drop shots, I don't feel like running.” First point. He served, on the line. I made a strange movement, and it came out as a winning drop shot. I heard Nastase roar: “Damn Maccarone!” We played to the death for three and a half hours, and I won 7-6 in the third set. Every time we changed sides, Nastase growled at me: “Maccarone, you hit me with a drop shot!”"

"Federer is tennis. I've seen him do things that I know can't be done, but he did them."

"(About Alcaraz) _He has higher peaks. Sinner is more consistent. A caterpillar: almost unbeatable. He has a game—I don't want to sound disrespectful—that is schematic, very basic, based on excellent fundamentals, better backhand than forehand. He moves very well for his height. He's very basic. The other one can do things you don't expect. Like the super tiebreak in Paris: after five and a half hours, a phenomenal thing. Now they're getting to know each other better. They'll become the new Federer and Nadal: they'll play many finals, sometimes one will win, sometimes the other."