Berrettini can’t seem to come to terms with the situation that has arisen: the truth about what’s going on.
It’s not an easy time for Matteo Berrettini. But the most serious problem is that this not at all easy moment has lasted, now, for too long. For about a year, to be precise. Ever since, with a few very rare exceptions, he has been in virtually no condition to get on the court and do what he used to do very well.
The feeling, from the outside, is that the Roman cannot come to terms with it. That he can’t handle the situation that has arisen and that he doesn’t really know how to get out of it. Provided that there is still time for him to do so. This hypothesis, in part, has been confirmed in recent hours by one of the people who knows him best in the world: his former coach, Vincenzo Santopadre. He and the tennis player broke up in October, and on Matteo’s bench now sits Francisco Roig, who worked with Rafael Nadal for nearly two decades. And this is one of those cases where the players have changed, but the music has not.
Indeed, Berrettini’s recent withdrawal from the Australian Open confirmed that the problems he struggled with last year are not yet solved. That he is far from solving them, above all, since playing is still not in the cards. And there is a very specific reason, according to Santopadre, if we are witnessing the downward parable of a champion who could – and still could – give so much to himself and his country.
Berrettini, Santopadre spills the beans: here’s what happened
The former coach spilled the beans in an interview with Repubblica, first telling why they decided to part ways. “A shake-up was needed,” he said. “Matteo had never questioned our relationship until I projected to him the need for an estrangement. There had been an accumulation of travails and labors. “
She seems to sense from the interview that Santopadre has had a hard time adjusting to Matteo’s new celebrity status and that this, inevitably, may have caused him to deflect and return to a somewhat less eventful life. “He has to disengage from expectations,” he said referring to his protégé, “The noise of popularity has hurt him, it has crushed him. He is reserved and sensitive. The meteoric rise was bad because of the side effects. Too many responsibilities, carrying Italy on his shoulders is hard. Dealing with the demands of the outside world is not easy. He was discombobulated by it.”
The portrait he paints is that of a destabilized tennis player who has lost his bearings. That he has not been able to handle well all the good and bad things that have happened to him. That he has lost himself, in a sense. And that he will need more than a change on the bench, to find himself and start again.
