Having beaten the French Monfils, now there is an obstacle Nadal: “I will enter the field with a poisoned eye”
Melbourne – “I don’t hear you, I don’t hear you!” The index finger pointed at the ear like a bomber under the opponent’s curve, the curl more rebellious than usual and the pupil a bit wild, here is Matteo Berrettini crossing an invisible threshold – one of the many shadow lines of the champions – and entering irritated, but triumphant, in a new season of his career. Probably the most beautiful.
Until it was the “young»Matthew, theunderdogfrom the Latin charm that captured some isolated success, no one would have dreamed of cheering on him, or of whistling in his ears between the first or second service. Today, however, Berrettini is number 6 in the world, one of the favorites of the tournament, the hammer made in Rome that collects records and demolishes opponents. The unfortunate but inevitable side effect is that now the cursed, or perhaps just the most gruesome, part of the Aussie drunkard prefers to cheer on the struggling old champion, Gael Monfils. And it does so by going beyond the limits of “siuuu” and screams, trying to consciously break his concentration. So much so that even the police appear in the stands. «In the audience there was someone who doesn’t like tennis. The cheering against me is fine but this is not the case, ”Berrettini said at the end, irritated and at the same time radiant. The very troubled quarter-final is his, Monfils was good at reassembling him two sets, as the terrible puppy Alcaraz had already done two rounds before, but in the end Matteo won it in the fifth – in the Berrettini area (he won six out of seven in career) rediscovering service, trust, the ability to split with the law.
He is in the semifinal at the Australian Open, the first Italian to make it in 117 years, the only blue to have won at least the semifinal in three Grand Slams, he who is also the only one to have put his feet in all the quarters of the majors. That’s how it goes in Melbourne, every round there is a record that collapses and a horizon that opens up. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration now to compare myself to the great Azzurri players,” he says without hiding behind old timidities. «I’m writing the history of our tennis, and I’m proud of it, this is my level. Normally I think about it when the tournament is over, but now there is so much affection that comes to me from Italy, from my family, from everyone who knows me. Before reaching the semifinal at the US Open (in 2019, ed) I had never thought about a career like this, I didn’t think I could win a Grand Slam. Today I only pay attention to what I can do better ». Yesterday too there was an empty pass, an unfortunate game that put the wind behind «air»Monfils, the acrobat lent to tennis, encouraged in the stands by his wife Elina Svitolina in the Jack Sparrow version. Matteo, however, recovered, in the fifth set he returned to hammering. «I told myself to hit as hard as I could and to fight on every point. I thought back to injuries, to what was taken away from me at the Turin Finals, I wanted to give everything at the cost of getting hurt again ». In a perfect deja vu, after beating LaMonf ohe touches Nadal – who in turn came out of an ordeal with Shapovalov – the Holy Monster who blocked his way in New York. “Nadal? I will play my third Grand Slam semifinal and I know I can beat him. I will enter the field with a poisoned eye, this time I don’t want to lose it ». Without Rafa’s huge past, but with a present that is worth every ambition. And it doesn’t matter who the audience cheers for.
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