The great beauty of Sinner-Berrettini. Fognini plays the third wheel: “One with my hand has yet to be born in Italy”
Wimbledon conquered by the Italian job: the Italian big 3 dominate the scene. Fognini show: "This is a false and selfish world, full of parrots"
ROME – ITA-ITA. That’s what it said on the scoreboard while Central went crazy for the Italian Job. Sinner and Berrettini, a second round as a final, in the night broken against tradition by artificial lights. The number one in the world against an unquantifiable champion, playing for the most abused title of all: the Great Beauty at Wimbledon. This would be followed later by the match of honey press conferences, soups of mutual compliments. But first, a little lateral, he had electrocuted everyone the third wheel: Fabio Fognini.
Fognini had filled the void of waiting with his cumbersome personality. He had gotten in the way, the role he chose for himself on and off the pitch. A lightning bolt with freshly bleached hair, on the grass opposite Ruud. And then a box cutter with the journalists in front of it. Because, while waiting for Musetti to come to fruition, yesterday Wimbledon summarized the Italian Big 3 in a single day. A trio of talents, unfortunately not exactly contemporary, which the history of Italian tennis can record as difficult to replicate : Sinner, Berrettini and Fognini.
And therefore Fognini. In purity: “If I had been born Sinner, square, everything would have been more beautiful. But another Fabio Fognini has yet to be born in Italy, with this hand“.
A claim to stature, at 37 years old, finally “alive” again. “It’s the thing that keeps me alive, playing these tournaments. I look at myself, I no longer have time to look elsewhere. I know how I play, I know how others play because I’ve been on the circuit for 20 years. I play because I love this sport and I love the competition again. I made some choices, even if they were wrong, but I made a point. I want to play these tournaments, because they are the ones that keep me alive, that keep the fire inside me results here are a consequence. I’m still here, happy to be in the third round at Wimbledon and have an opportunity to try to dig this second week, something I’ve never managed to do in my career.” Zappare says exactly that. A harsh, heavy verb. An effort, being Fognini…
They ask him if Fognini and Pennetta’s son will become a tennis player…. “Let’s hope not… Tennis is a beautiful sport, which made me win and gave me life, it made me become Fabio Fognini. If you tell me ‘go cook a dish’, I don’t know how to do it. But on the other hand I know how much I have sacrificed. One day I will support him in everything he does to be careful because it’s a false world. It’s a false world. A selfish world, because it’s a selfish sport that leads you to make decisions… But the main thing will be to be careful. , with our eyes open because there are so many parrots around.”
Journalists… “I have had a relationship with you that has penalized me during my career. Because I am sincere. That’s how I am. You haven’t changed me and I haven’t changed you. If I was born Sinner and I was square, everything was more beautiful. I too am aware that if I had worked on this aspect, other things would have come. That’s how I am. Whoever loves me takes me another Fabio Fognini is yet to be born in Italy, with this hand”. It could “be iron or feather”, Sinner-Berrettini or, in fact, just Fognini.