Matteo Berrettini, now that relic has another “flavor.” It was all written there: it was only a matter of time for it to happen.
One was 15 years old, the other only 9. Although they belonged to different generations, they already had one passion in common: that, namely, for tennis. Thirteen years have passed since then, but this is when the video in question began to take on a whole new flavor. Only now, in fact, has it taken on the “appearance” of a premonitory video, in a way.
You are rightly wondering, at this point, which film is being alluded to. We’re talking about the one, which has long since gone viral on social networks, whose protagonists are two of the tennis players who, later this week, will take the court to honor the Italian jersey and drag the national team to the Davis Cup Finals. They are Matteo Berrettini and Flavio Cobolli, who despite being summoned at the corner deserve, that’s for sure, to serve Italtennis.
The decision to summon them was consequential to the decision to preserve Jannik Sinner, back from two very busy weeks in New York, and Lorenzo Musetti, who alluded to his “psychophysical condition” in the post with which he announced what had been set, but without going into too much detail. He needs rest, most likely, too, who shortly after winning bronze at the Olympics flew to the States without even having time to rest.
Berrettini and Cobolli, it was bound to happen
Back to Berrettini and Cobolli, though, and why we argue that that is a somewhat foreboding video.
Let’s bring up the video of @Alenize82 for @Lemonbowl1985 to celebrate something nice: for the first time Matteo Berrettini and Flavio Cobolli will wear the National Team jersey together DavisCup pic. twitter.com/ubS5Jh6pCb
– Matteo Mosciatti (@matmosciatti11) September 7, 2024
The footage dates back to the 2011 Lemon Bowl, a national youth tournament, established in 1984, which originally welcomed international participants and in which young champions of the time took part. In the video, the teenage Matthew comments on the match he had just played, demonstrating that he had, even then, excellent communication skills and analytical abilities.
Spectator Cobolli, sitting on the bench while eating chips from a bag, watches his older friend with obvious admiration. At one point, Alessandro Nizegorodcew, the reporter who filmed that moment, frames Flavio ironically calling him Berrettini’s “pupil.” At this point, comes Cobolli’s tender response, “I wish!” It seems clear that little Flavio had a desire, even then, to learn from the teenage Matteo. And now that his first summons to Davis is finally here, we can only say that the dream has almost come true. He will not be his pupil, but his teammate. Even better, perhaps, than he had dared to imagine.
