American tennis is all the rave at the moment, with Jessica Pegula’s retention of her Canadian Open title on Monday the latest success for US tennis.
Naturally, there is no better time to rev up the engines and try and push for as successful a US Open as last year for the homegrown talents.
As Ben Shelton made a lightning entry to reach the semi-finals and while Coco Gauff dropped to her knees after securing her maiden singles slam, there is still US momentum going into the hard court season.
After two decades of European dominance, it is understandable that the high number of American male and female players rankings in their respective top 30’s, is something worth celebrating.
However, with a number of other countries also experiencing enormous, often unforeseen growth, tennis is seeing an exciting spread of talents.
Czechia have emerged as a new superpower, after Barbora Krejcikova’s Wimbledon win, along with Katerina Siniakova’s golden summer in which she won mixed-doubles gold in Paris, as well as Wimbledon and French Open titles in the women’s doubles.
With Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani clinching Olympic gold for Italy, cries of ‘Forza’ however have only been getting louder since the end of 2023.
Matteo Berettinni explains how impressed he is with the state of Italian tennis
After Italy ended their 47-year Davis Cup drought last November, Jannik Sinner promptly won his first major title in Melbourne two months later.
“In a way I had a different path compared to Jannik and Lorenzo,” Berrettini explained on Andy Roddick’s ‘Served’ podcast. “They are still so young, when I was their age I wasn’t even top 100! But at the same time, in Italy now it is crazy.
With Sinner becoming the first Italian player to be ranked number one since computerized rankings began in 1973, he has been joined by Lorenzo Musetti who has only continued to improve this year.
“We are a soccer country,” Berrettini continued. “Soccer is the sport. But right now, when there is a big match like me against Jannik or Lorenzo, when he is playing for bronze medal, or Jannik in the final of the Australian Open, we won the Davis Cup last year. The country stops for a little while.
“This makes me feel unbelievably proud because I think we are coming a long way,” he reflected.” We are not like you guys in the US, with all the past champions and great players you had in the past, so it’s definitely something which makes me feel proud and I think the best is yet to come. These guys are so young and we are helping each other to play better and better.”
With Paolini’s back-to-back finals at Wimbledon and the French Open, she is also taking care of the women’s side, currently sitting within the top five of the WTA rankings.
Italian tennis is still producing more and more tennis talent
Even if you forget Sinner, Musetti, and Paolini, the stars are still emerging all over the place.
Flavia Cobolli only reached the top 100 in October 2023, yet the 22-year-old is now sitting just one spot outside the top 30.
After a run to the final in Washington where he defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime, Cobolli went on to defeat American number two Tommy Paul in Cincinnati.
Matteo Arnaldi has also forced his name into the conversation, after registering a win over Andrey Rublev at the French Open this year and most recently reaching his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final in Montreal.
With this constant output of talent, Italian tennis is not waiting around to make its mark on the sport.
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