Gianluca Cadenasso in the photo
The Genoese aimed to enter the top 800 by September. Thanks to the final at the Tennis Club Città dei Mille he will reach the goal with two months to spare: he beats the expert Juan Pablo Paz and will play his first final against the eternal Andrej Martin. In doubles the title slips away for the Bergamo player Malgaroli: Catini-Perfetti win.
Not all evils have a silver lining. Gianluca Cadenasso was born as a fast court player, to the point of having claimed – some time ago – that “the faster the court, the happier I am”. Then it happened that in February 2023 he suffered a knee injury that prevented him from playing on fast courts for five months. Many years ago something like this happened to the Australian Jason Kubler, who was forced to play only on clay for a long period. In the period without hard courts, the Genoese has developed the qualities necessary to become a good ground player and today he celebrates his first final in a professional tournament: by beating Juan Pablo Paz with a score of 7-6 6-0 he will play for the title at the AZIMUT Trophy (15,000 $, clay). In the second semi-final of his career (he played the first two weeks ago in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary) he was excellent at managing the complexities of a match against a more experienced opponent with a physical problem that could have destabilized him. At 2-1 in the first set, the Argentine asked for physiotherapist intervention for a back problem. He held out until the tie-break and there Cadenasso did well to win it, mentally exhausting his opponent. The second went smoothly and therefore Italy is back in contention to win the tournament: the last to do so was Federico Arnaboldi in 2021.
DIESEL MARTIN WON’T STOP
Member of the Genoa Tennis Club, Cadenasso will turn 20 on September 29th and collected his first ATP points last summer. Thanks to his latest successes, he will reach his seasonal goal a couple of months early: last September he said that he would like to break into the ATP top 800 within a year. However the final goes, he will reach the finish line well in advance. The blue strikes the ball very well and seems to have the “right” head, an adequate professionalism that will come in handy in the years to come. To win his first title he will have to beat the eternal Andrej Martin, who was also capable of beating Alessandro Pecci after a nightmare start (5-0 for the Romagna player). At a certain point, the Slovakian started to grind out the game. Ahead 4-1 in the third, he contained Pecci’s return and prevailed with a score of 3-6 6-3 6-4. It was thought that the efforts of the week (this is his sixth match) were making themselves felt, but instead his game improves day after day, and it seems that he finds his maximum performance as the matches progress. It will be the best possible final: on one side the most prestigious player at the Tennis Club Città dei Mille, on the other a young man on the rise. The match will be played starting at 10.30am. In the doubles draw, the title for Bergamo tennis fades once again: the Caniato-Malgaroli pair in fact surrendered in the super tie-break against Catini-Perfetti, with Malgaroli stuck one step away from the title just as happened to the pair twelve months ago all Bergamo Vincent Ruggeri-Fumagalli.
