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The Internazionali d’Italia began on Wednesday, the important men’s and women’s tennis tournament that is played every year on red clay in Rome, at the Foro Italico, and which this year will end on May 19th. The Internationals fall into the 1000 category (Masters 1000 and WTA 1000), the second most important after the four Grand Slam tournaments: they are called this because they award 1000 ranking points to the winner. Since last year, the number of participants has been expanded from 64 to 96, in both the men’s and women’s draws. Instead of lasting seven or eight days, as 1000 tournaments usually did, the Internationals now last more than ten days.
In recent years the Italian federation has been trying to bring the Rome tournament closer to the prestige and revenues of the Grand Slams, which are the most followed and richest of the year, the ones around which the entire tennis season revolves. Several times the president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation Angelo Binaghi spoke with great emphasis of the Rome tournament as a possible “fifth Slam”: it is something that various organizers of 1000 tournaments do from time to time, mostly for promotional and to emerge compared to the other eight important tournaments in the same category, but it is also a symptom of the ambition of those who organize the Internationals. It is true, in fact, that after the last few years of success for Italian tennis, first for women and then for men, attention has grown towards the Rome Internationals, which were already seen abroad as one of the best tournaments in the world.
In Italy this year there were great expectations especially for the men’s tournament, because it was supposed to be played by the Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, number two in the world ranking, who this year won his first Slam title and has been the most successful tennis player for months. in circuit form. Given this expectation, the greater number of matches and the increase in prices, already two weeks ago there was talk of record attendance and revenue for the tournament.
But then Sinner, who withdrew from the Madrid tournament last week due to injury, said he wouldn’t be there in Rome either. For the occasion, a press conference was even organized at the Foro Italico with president Binaghi: something quite unprecedented, which explains well how important Sinner has become for Italian tennis and the at times even morbid attention towards him by the players average. A few days earlier, world number three Carlos Alcaraz, together with Sinner the strongest among young tennis players and considered his greatest sporting rival, had also announced his absence at the Internationals.
Matteo Berrettini, who is from Rome and for years was the best Italian tennis player, before a long series of injuries, decided to give up the tournament (where in any case he did not arrive with very great ambitions, after an inconsistent period both from a physical point of view than the results). On Friday, during the match against Terence Atmane, Lorenzo Musetti, the second Italian in the ranking, also had to withdraw.
Unfortunately, the organization had focused a lot on the promotion of the men’s tournament and less on the women’s one, which instead features many of the best tennis players in the world, with the top two in the ranking, Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka: this choice could prove counterproductive, given the defections from the men’s tournament. For some years now in Rome there have been complaints about the unequal treatment of the men’s and women’s tournaments, which last year, for example, was the most interesting of the two. Elena Rybakina, winner of the Internationals last year, should have also been there, but on Friday the Belarusian announced her withdrawal due to a physical problem.
In short, the absences of Sinner and Alcaraz are a disappointment for the organizers and spectators but could make the men’s tournament more uncertain, and therefore exciting. However, many important tennis players participate, starting with the world number one, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who has won the Internationals six times. Djokovic comes from a disappointing period, at least by his standards: he recently changed coach and staff, and he has not yet won a title in 2024, which is unusual for him. It happened several times to Djokovic that he started a tournament in less than excellent conditions and then found motivation and fitness match after match, until he won it. It cannot therefore be ruled out that he could do it again these days, also because he has always gone well at the Internationals.
Novak Djokovic, 36, has won the Italian Internationals six times (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
It was something that often happened, until a few years ago, even to Rafael Nadal, the strongest player ever on clay, ten times winner of the Rome Internationals (Djokovic is practically the only one who, in recent years, has managed to compete with him on this surface). However, Nadal has recently started playing again, after a year of absence, and this will probably be his last season as a professional player. It should therefore also be the last time that he will play at the Internationals, almost twenty years after his first victory, in 2005, at the age of 19.
It is difficult to predict how many rounds he will be able to overcome, but it will be interesting to see if his game and his fitness are improving ahead of Roland Garros, the Grand Slam tournament which he has won 14 times and in which he has a record of 112 victories and 3 defeats: the Internationals are played immediately before Roland Garros and usually those who do well in the first also do well in the second, because the climatic conditions and the surface are very similar (even more similar than other tournaments equally on clay). In the first match Nadal won 2-1 against the modest Belgian player Zizou Bergs (4-6, 6-3, 6-4), struggling quite a bit but also playing very exciting rallies.
Besides Djokovic and Nadal, who always attract great attention when they participate in a tournament, there are the two finalists of last edition, the Russian Daniil Medvedev and the Dane Holger Rune. Medvedev won last year in Rome, but he doesn’t like playing on clay, clearly the surface least suited to his game, while Rune is considered the most promising young player after Sinner and Alcaraz. There are also several tennis players more suited to clay, such as the German Alexander Zverev, who won in Rome in 2017, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Russian Andrey Rublev (winners of the last two 1000 tournaments on clay, Monte Carlo and Madrid respectively). Then there is also the Norwegian Casper Ruud, who in his career has reached the final at Roland Garros twice and has had almost all of his best results on clay. The Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, number 10 in the world, also plays tennis suited to clay (which allows him to make the most of all the possibilities given by his one-handed backhand) and generally very entertaining.
In Rome there are almost never surprise winners: in the last nineteen years only three times has one between Nadal and Djokovic not won (Andy Murray in 2016, Alexander Zverev in 2017, Daniil Medvedev in 2023). Considering the absences of Sinner and Alcaraz, and the doubts about the form of Nadal and Djokovic, this could be the right year for a slightly less obvious victory.
– Read also: Every moment is a good time to study when playing against Nadal
2024-05-10 07:18:14
#left #Italian #Internationals #Sinner #Alcaraz
