Matteo Berrettini tries to put disappointments aside, bad luck and to focus only on the future. His 2024 so far has been made up of more sacrifices than matches played but despite this, in the tournaments in which he showed up in good shape he has always managed to reach the final. It happened in Phoenix, then in Marrakech (complete with victory) and now also in Stuttgart.
Caps without obstacles with Musetti
A match dominated by Matteo Berrettini: the semi-final at the ATP in Stuttgart complete with the Italian derby against Lorenzo Musetti presented more than one threat for the Roman. And the first set was more complicated than the score of 6-4 suggests with the Carrara native having several opportunities to break the Roman’s serve. In the second the match had no history, initial break for The Hammer which took away any possibility of reaction from Musetti who as the minutes passed also mentally left the match and ended up conceding the infamous bagel (6-0).
Musetti-Berrettini: all the emotions of the Italian derby
Berrettini and the Italy-Albania challenge
A semi-final lasting just over an hour Matteo Berrettini who at the end of the match is also teased about the match between Italy and Albania at the European Football Championships which are being played in Germany: “Did you hurry because you didn’t want to run the risk of missing Italy?”, the interviewer urges him. Matteo smiles but then immediately turns serious about the match against a friend like Musetti.
“I’ve played quite a bit this week, it’s never easy playing against a great friend. At the beginning there was great tension but I was able to keep calm especially at the end of the first set. I don’t know why I can give my best here, maybe it’s the air but much more probably it’s the audience. Since the first year, in 2019 when I was younger, I have managed to do well. Sometimes it seems like I always say the same things, I’ve had a couple of tough years, things that have happened in my life”.
After all, the relationship between Matteo Berrettini, the Italian national team and the European football championships it brings to mind very beautiful and happy moments for the blue as well as for all Italians. The greatest result of the Italian’s career was in fact the Wimbledon final which came in the same days in which the national team, at the time led by Mancini, won the European championship.
Berrettini: the unprecedented challenge with Draper
Tomorrow for Berrettini is the third final of 2024. After Phoenix and Marrakech, the blue will try to win the tournament played on the Stuttgart grass for the third time. A surface that seems to restore his confidence and smile every year and tomorrow the match with Draper has great importance: “Now I have to take one more step, it’s not over here. I never played against Draper, maybe we never even trained together. Surely my coaches will have studied it. He played a great tournament but obviously I want to try to win even though he is an excellent player there, especially on grass”.
