tennis-players-from-italy

"(Before the final of the 2012 Roland Garros) I'll have to serve a lot of first serves and move her around as much as I can. It's still a tennis match, so I'll try to play it and enjoy myself. Could the wind interfere with her high ball toss? Then let's hope for a hurricane!"

"She hits all her shots perfectly. Sara Errani has a great selection of shots. She processes the game very well inside her head."

"The more important matches I play, the more I understand this sport. There are no magic formulas. There is only hard work, perseverance, and determination."

"[...] I started playing tennis at the age of 5 and fell in love with the sport. It was love at first sight. I feel great when I play. When I was younger, I used to watch the Grand Slam finals [...]. But it was hard to imagine that I could do it myself. Of course, I wanted to, but now it's something crazy for me."

"No one is unbeatable, but I'd like to see Serena play in men's tournaments: she'd win a $10,000 tournament. She has an intensity and ability to play on the court that even men don't have. I've heard a lot of talk about the difference between men and women, but Serena's strength has to be proven on the court. I train with guys who are ranked 400-500 in the world, and I can assure you that she hits much harder."

"Interviewer: “What has been the most difficult moment in recent years?” Jasmine Paolini: Not qualifying for the Slams made me feel really bad. Finally, at Roland Garros in 2019, I got through the qualifying rounds [after nine failed attempts in various Majors, ed.] without losing a single set, and that broke the deadlock. Now I'm starting to win matches in the main draw, and it's a whole different story, but those years weren't easy. I arrived unconvinced, often without a coach, and I couldn't express myself at my best. In 2018 in Australia, I won three games in the first round of the qualifiers, and it was devastating."

"Interviewer: If you could give advice to Jasmine Paolini, who is entering the circuit at a very young age, what would you say to her? Jasmine Paolini: To have fewer doubts about myself. I think it's a very Italian flaw not to belittle yourself a little. Less doubt, more certainty."

"Interviewer: Life on the circuit can be exciting but also repetitive and tiring. How do you experience it? Jasmine Paolini: After years of playing mainly ITF, without hospitality and with very low prize money, I would describe life in WTA tournaments as peaceful. There is no anxiety about money, there are lots of points up for grabs, and everything is perfectly organized. Obviously, traveling all the time is not so easy, I have to learn to manage myself a little better: after New York, for example, I returned to Europe to play in Portoroz and then, without a break, I went back to the States to play in the Chicago tournament. I arrived exhausted and lost in the first round; looking back, I would opt for a different schedule or simply a week's rest. In summary: the professional circuit presents you with many challenges, sporting and otherwise, that are not easy to resolve; however, I consider myself privileged and never complain about this life."

"You get hurt, after the injury you can't find yourself again and a thousand doubts arise about your level, your ability to play well... uncertainty after uncertainty, your level drops. If you go on court without being calm, it becomes difficult."

"(About Iga Świątek) The simplicity with which she plays is impressive. In women's tennis, it's not so common to play against someone who does everything very well and always makes the right choice."

"For a tennis player, technical changes are often traumatic, because it's not easy to change shots that you already consider good. We players are usually quite stubborn..."

"She plays really well inside her head. She has good technique, great technique. She has a grip that works well. Because even though she's short, she can still return a high ball. She's very confident right now. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that. I think you'll see this more and more. Of course, taller players still have huge advantages. When you're not tall, you have to play even better and be faster. Justine Henin has already done it, and now Errani is in the final. It's incredible. It takes a lot of energy just to think that you can be competitive with players who are taller than you, and she's doing it."

"I dreamed of becoming a professional, but not of being number 1 or winning a Grand Slam. Never. Not even of entering the top 10 [...]. But I hoped for it, without really believing it. Then, step by step, step by step, I started to believe in myself without projecting myself too far ahead. That's why I was surprised to hear Nole's [Novak Đoković, ed.] interviews when he was a child, in which he said he wanted to become number 1 in the world and win Wimbledon. I watched them and it seemed incredible to me that children could dream like that. The same goes for Jannik [Sinner, ed.], who at 15 said his dream was to become number 1 in the world. I'm very happy, but I think I'm a different person."

"(About Nick Kyrgios) He has a strong personality, which I've always liked. Watching him play is a show, he does crazy things. My character shouldn't like him, but I've always found him interesting. Lately, however, he's made some rather ugly and unfortunate comments [...]. He seemed too eccentric to me, and I don't like that side of him very much. I preferred him when he limited himself to his antics on the court."

"I like nice guys. Someone like Balotelli, for example, I can't stand him. I didn't like him at the European Championships and I really don't like him, his personality, his arrogant attitude. I can't stand him."

"Women have more spirit of sacrifice. In Italy, there is no culture of running, of suffering. Men think they can win with their shirt collars turned up, without breaking a sweat, with aces on serve and classy shots. Kids take to the court thinking about a cool guy like Roger Federer, not Rafael Nadal, who, having fewer natural weapons, sweats and fights. They should understand that, before becoming like that, Federer also worked his butt off."

"Interviewer: “During a match, have you ever thought that you would have won if you were 10 centimeters taller?” Jasmine Paolini: Never. The only question I ask myself is how I would serve if I were taller. That said, I can serve just as well. We're working on it, especially on transferring what I do in training to the match. During training, I serve pretty well. In a match, it's more difficult: I might miss a couple, I don't get the first one in, I get a couple of winning returns... and then I start to slow down and the insecurities creep in. But I'm happy with what I can do in training. We're working hard: the serve is too important in tennis today. In particular, I try not to slow down the speed of the shot."

"Interviewer: “Everyone says about you: ‘She has a great forehand but she's short’. What do you say to that? Jasmine Paolini: It's not a problem and I don't even think about it. I know what I need to improve, for example my serve, but for me, height isn't a huge disadvantage. Okay, if I were 5 centimeters taller, maybe I would serve a little better... but maybe I would be less agile. Like everything, it has its pros and cons."

"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)"

"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)"

"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?”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"(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)"

"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."

"(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."

"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."

"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."

"Tennis was invented by the Devil."

"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."

"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."

"(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."

"(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."

"(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!"

"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!”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"How many evenings we spent together, in the dark atmosphere of a nightclub, as the hours of the games drew nearer. The anxiety I felt, as a former player and friend, did not seem to affect Nicola in the slightest."

"In Pietrangeli, the human being always prevailed over the machine capable of playing perfectly."

"What was Pietrangeli's most important skill as captain? While playing, knowing how to open water bottles and hand out towels from the right side. Because that's all a captain has to do: if you have Leo Messi, there's no point in telling him how to play. Off the court, it's a little different: you have to know how to manage guys who at some point think they're God."

"Today, all the credit goes to a phenomenal generation that made tennis a hugely popular sport throughout Italy. And some people wanted to prevent that. It's crazy."