One two three. Malaga 2023, Malaga 2024, Bologna 2025. We are a very strong team. More so than the 2006 song sung by Checco Zalone, who probably wouldn’t have won the World Cup Germany without Del Piero and Totti. Instead, the Italian tennis players, without Sinner and Musetti, won their third Davis Cup in a row.
Be careful, “very strong” does not mean “dominator”: in the deciding match, for the first three quarters of an hour Flavio Cobolli was clueless, exposed to a hail of precise and powerful shots from the Majorcan player from Santanyí, thirty kilometers south of Manacor, Nadal’s hometown. This Jaume Munar, known as “Jimbo” for his Connors-like aggressiveness, looked like a fury, a 1997-born boy who sometimes impressed me on clay but always looked terrible on other surfaces, from the grass of Wimbledon to the acrylic resin, rubber and silica Laykold of Flushing Meadows. Today, in the second match of the final (the first was won by Matteo Berrettini, almost easily), the number 3 in Italy and 21 in the world found himself trailing 1-6. The second set didn’t start much better on serve: 0-1.
Then, slowly, he regained control of the situation, recovered the break and forced his opponent, ATP 36, to tire and lose strength. In the twelfth game he had four chances to get the match back on track, and he failed to capitalize on them. However, in the tie break round, he was more effective: 7-5. Cobolli’s third set was again uphill, with Munar holding serve until the end, until the eleventh game, a break that effectively closed the scoring. After victory is achieved with a score of 1-6 7-6 7-5, the party can begin.
This was a more significant victory than the previous two in Spain: because it was in front of a home crowd, first of all, and because it showed that Italtennis was not dependent on Sinner. There are others who have high technical and human values. Two Roma “from Roma Nord”, Cobolli and Berrettini, pioneers of this historic success, constantly repeat it: we are a team, we are friends, we help each other, in difficult times we know that we can rely on a resilient network of solidarity. They referred to everyone: Sonego, Bolelli, Vavassori, their personal trainer — Cobolli sr. and Vavassori sr., Santopadre and Bega, among others — and to FITP coaches and coaches. Of course, to captain Filippo Volandri and president Angelo Binaghi, who now lacks one final satisfaction: “I want to see the Italians lift the trophy at the Foro Italico”, he said. The women with Jasmine Paolini have satisfied him.
Apart from Cobolli, who played two unforgettable games against Belgian Bergs on Friday and against Munar today, the protagonist of a brilliant week in Bologna was Matteo Berrettini. In a few months, in April, “The Hammer” will be thirty years old, which for a racket professional is a closer transition than for his peers who live for other things. Fresh from a very troubled season, he wants to get there in a psychophysical condition that many spectators have improved in recent days after victories over Austrian Rodionov, Belgian Collignon and, today, the Spaniard Carreno Busta: not even a lost set, constant growth, a rediscovered role as a reference point for the new wave of Italian tennis.
If he succeeds, we expect results equivalent to his best years, when he was steadily in the top ten, collecting ten ATP singles titles, the final at Wimbledon in 2021, the semifinals at the US Open in 2019 and at the Australian Open in 2022, the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in 2021. It will depend on the management of his fragile body, which is always prone to injury, and on luck. In terms of quality of play and tactical intelligence, Berrettini is at the strongest level on the circuit, excluding the two young champions Sinner and Alcaraz and the old Djokovic. Opposed in the opening match of the final by Pablo Carreno Busta, born in 1991, originally from Gijón, Matteo was tactically perfect, he got a break when the chances of his opponent recovering him were slim. A hugely experienced player, frightening in the decisive stages thanks to his methodical and patient play, the Spaniard nevertheless had to give up (6-3 6-4) in the face of his overwhelming desire to win.
Next year Davis’ Final Eight will probably be played in a new sports palace under construction, a stone’s throw from the SuperTennis Arena, which sits inside a giant hangar at BolognaFiere. Italy as the host will not face any problems in the preliminary round in September, so it is certain that they will return to the Magnificent Eight in November. The same thing will happen in the next four years. Davis’ adventure in blue Bologna is just beginning. You will notice that, like the ATP Finals in Turin, within a few months tickets for the 2026 edition were already sold out.
