A group of friends. This is the secret of Italy’s third consecutive victory in the Davis Cup. In Bologna, in front of a home crowd, the Azzurri beat Spain 2-0, 28 years later, in the final round that would be expected if both teams were “typical” teams, namely on one side with Sinner and Musetti and on the other with Alcaraz and Davidovich Fokina. The stories are different and both teams relied on group strength and the will to give their all to overcome these obstacles.
What dominates everything is the feeling that binds Matteo Berrettini to Flavio Cobolli. Lifelong friends, united by this love of practice, are willing to give everything for the blue jersey and train on the pitches of the Circolo Aniene, under the watchful eye of Vincenzo Santopadre and father Stefano (Cobolli). Friendships born in Open tournaments, satellites and Futures, small tennis tournaments, sharing rooms, ups and downs, driven by one great passion. Berrettini took on the role of lighthouse. He, the protagonist of last year’s Malaga journey with Sinner, has lived and is living this competition with special enthusiasm: yesterday his 11th consecutive victory in singles. “Playing in the team makes me excited, since I was on the pitch in the lower categories and played in Serie A”, he said in recent days in Emilia. Therefore, his performance against expert Carreno Busta was worthy of his palmares. A sudden authoritative statement with a score of 6-3, 6-4, made a difference with his ability to replace the “fail” solution with a “hammer” solution. The Roman player’s touch and strength did not diminish and Italy’s first point came to fruition. “I will never get used to all this and I don’t want to get used to it. It’s hard to talk now, I’m very happy and excited. Before the match I was a little tense as it should be, but the result is the most important thing and it went well. It doesn’t matter who plays on the court or who stays at home: the team is long, many of us play tennis well and try to do our best on the court”, he considered.
Everyone then gathered in a corner to support Cobolli. The nightmare was first set for the Bel Paese class of 2002, with the presence of Jaume Munar in the wall version. Very few mistakes from the Iberian and a lot of aggression destroyed Flavio’s certainty, represented by the 6-1 scoreline. In the second set, the reaction of the player ranked n.22, managed to recover the break at the start, after a break of several minutes due to illness in the stands. The tension went beyond guard level and the tie-break justified Flavio’s resolve, scoring with the score 7-6 (5). When the going gets tough, the tough go and Cobolli made his dream come true, breaking the Spaniard’s resistance at 7-5.
Davis was fourth for Italy, third in a row, something that had never happened in the history of the Italian team and Davis was born in 1971 when the Challenge Round was abolished. Racquet and ball sports coincide with the color blue.
