Matteo Berrettini has taken Italian tennis to historic heights—and now he’s aiming to create happy homecoming.
The fifth-seeded Berrettini bombed 11 aces and did not face break point defeating qualifier Alejandro Tabilo 6-4, 7-5, to reach the Indian Wells third round and a meeting with 31st-seeded American Taylor Fritz.
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Berrettini currently sits in sixth place in the race to the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, Italy and says qualifying for the elite eight-man event in his homeland would be “one of the biggest achievements I can think about” both for himself and Italian tennis.
“It would be a really nice thing to end the year,” Berrettini told the media in Indian Wells. “I didn’t expect it when I started the year. I wanted to get there, but I didn’t expect I would fight for that. I wanted to fight for that but now I’m in a good position.
“I know it’s not done yet. There is still some matches to win, still some time to wait a little bit. For me it would be great because I’ve been in London and I know how great it was and I think having it in Italy would be great of me, for the crowd for the fans for the tennis in general. It would just be a great achievment so I’m really hoping to play there hopefully.”
Last July, a bold Berrettini bolted through 11 straight games dismantling Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-4 to burst into history as the first Italian—male or female—to reach the Wimbledon singles final where he fell to Novak Djokovic.
Intent on booking his trip to Turin, Berrettini may well have company. Compatriot Jannik Sinner, currently 10th in the race standings for Turin, opened his Indian Wells campaign with a 6-2, 6-2 sweep of Aussie John Millman scoring his fifth straight win. Given Rafael Nadal is out of Turin and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s status is uncertain, the 20-year-old Sinner has a solid shot to join Berrettini giving Italy two of the elite eight in next month’s season-ending event.
Berrettini believes it would be a big boost for Italian tennis.
“I think it would mean a lot for everybody for Jannik as well he’s so young and already fighting for that it’s crazy,” Berrettini said. “We know we’re playing for that. And I think for the fans in general it’s nice because we are two different kind of players it’s nice also that.
“I think overall showing Italian tennis is really healthy a lot of players are coming up and a lot of players are still playing good and so we deserve to have the finals and we deserve to have a [Masters] 1000 and all the tournaments we have. And hopefully we’re gonna have even more.”
Photo credit: Matteo Berrettini Instagram