Berrettini spills the beans: here’s how things really are. The truth does not coincide at all with what has always been thought.
Rivers of ink have been wasted on what has been a very hot topic akin to the tennis world for a while. No one had seen eye to eye, though. All the remarks, all the “conspiracy” theories formulated in support of this thesis have irretrievably, one after another, fallen. Collapsed.
Wrong were those who believed that there was tide between Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini. We found out, indeed, that the two have grown very close over the past period. Proof that there need not be envy or resentment when one wins and the other loses, or perhaps, this is the case, cannot play because of a fragile and often unmanageable physique. It was good, then, to hear the Roman admit how close the South Tyrolean has been to him at this dark time in his career. “He’s doing crazy things,” he had said in the aftermath of Jannik’s victory at the Australian Open, “we’re in touch, we talk often, he’s helping me a lot, even the Davis Cup has been a spring effect. In tennis we stimulate each other, to see an Italian training with me and playing with me and being up there, it makes me want to be up there too.”
Several weeks have passed since that confession, and the Roman hammer is finally back on the court doing what he does best: taking opponents by the balls. He is doing it fairly well, too, considering the long time he has spent away from the circuit. He treated himself to a final at the Phoenix Challenger and an excellent performance, net of defeat, in the first round in Miami. And even his clay-court debut was convincing, a sign that he is heading in the right direction.
Berrettini spills the beans: what a quitter Sinner
Just in Morocco, where he traveled to participate in the first 250 of the season on clay, he returned to talk about his friend Sinner. Immediately after his victory against Alexander Shevchenko, he gave the press a new statement that can only be read one way.
“I’m glad to be back, seven months was a long time but I’m having so much fun playing now. When I played in Phoenix I didn’t think I could put so many matches together; here in Marrakech the debut was very positive for me, I feel charged and full of energy. Jannik’s wins, who deserves everything he is getting, push all of us to give our best.”
A flat-out denial, then, straight from Morocco. A point, hopefully definitive, on a trite story that has only ever rested on nonexistent foundations. Jannik and Matteo enemies? Not at all.