A lion-like Wednesday is expected at Wimbledon, for pure and strong hearts: Jannik Sinner against Matteo Berrettini. “My pulse will be racing”».
Vincenzo Santopadre: As Matteo’s former coach, you will be an exceptional and neutral spectator. But will you really be?
“Well, it’s going to have a certain effect on me. I really want to see this match. It tickles me so much that I’ll have to ask someone for a ticket…”.
This wasn’t bad.
“Jokes aside, I saw a bit of Matteo’s match, but knowing that he’s playing against Jannik, who I like a lot, and not just as a tennis player, makes me sad…”.
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Do we want to technically launch ourselves into the match?
“Nooo, no way, are you crazy? We are facing two serious, honest teams, made up of good people. I won’t go into the merits even under torture. I have no advice and I won’t give any. And then: what is there to explain, that we don’t know about Sinner and Berrettini’s game?”.
So he just wants to enjoy the match.
“Exactly”.
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In any case, he is not unemployed.
“What I’m doing now is following Luca. That is, Van Assche, the Frenchman from Bergamo. Crazy Atalanta fan. Did you know that?”
For his mother…
“Exactly. They are the kind of parents I like, so I decided to follow him.”
But he certainly sees tennis from a different point of view now.
“In the meantime, I’m enjoying Wimbledon: the delicate sound of the ball on the grass, a sound that cannot be replicated. And then there are the memories that come back strong: me who can’t mess around before the 2021 final, the time of training with my friend Pelouche, when we were missing the fourth for the doubles…”.
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It seems like a different world than today.
“I know. Today I have the luxury of moments of reflection, I can allow myself to smoke a ‘reflective’ cigar every now and then. When I played, we greeted each other with affection, with emotion, with a smile on our lips, with a hug. We lived much more, we knew each other much more. Now that the teams have expanded, there are players who greet each other and that’s it. There is less lived history, fewer anecdotes and less personal knowledge”.
Very true. But let’s get back to you: what can be the feelings of a coach who raised a boy by taking him to the final at Wimbledon and now he is no longer?
“I’m fine with myself. We’ve experienced so many things together, traveled so much. All experiences that have made us grow. I understand that we live for results and fulfillment, but for me fulfillment is doing something I like. I’m fine with myself.”
This philosophy of life is in a healthy minority, in tennis and in the world. Do you know this?
“I am aware of this. Yet it is precisely for this reason that someone in France suggested my name to the Van Assche family. There are still those who have values similar to mine.”
Is there anything you would like to say to those who are approaching tennis, a preliminary message?
“That the world of youth, alas, is starting to be polluted, which was not the case before. Because there is money. And therefore there is moral corruption, with people who unfortunately do not work for pleasure and passion, but only and exclusively for economic gain, this is the point.”
A bit of disenchantment can be sensed…
“Well, I lived years at a cannonball pace, with suffocating rhythms and with difficulties, but I never backed down because basically I do a job that I like. I don’t know how many times it happened that, passing through Rome, some friend asked me for a lesson at Aniene and I never said no, while I could have spent that time differently. And then, then, I asked myself: ‘why did I do it?’, but I already knew the answer: because I like it, it’s not a job”.
