The last word has not yet been said for Matteo Berrettini: upheaval around the corner, everything could change between now and then.
He has been watching them all, from first to last, very carefully. He examined their strokes and body language, head and concentration level. Until he arrived, then, at the final decision. Which then final, in truth, is not. So much time will pass, between the summons and the start of the Davis Cup group stage, that everything could change.
The fact remains that, at least for the time being, these are the athletes that national team captain Filippo Volandri has summoned for the all-important mid-September event. Wearing the blue jersey first against Brazil, then against Belgium and finally against the Netherlands, will be Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Musetti, Luciano Darderi, Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli. Two are the big absentees, if we do not count Fabio Fognini, who was already “torpedoed” last year.
Neither Matteo Berrettini nor Lorenzo Sonego will be there, although it is the former’s nonconvocation that has shocked the tennis people the most. The Roman, team man par excellence, put at the door to make way for Darderi, who is playing very well but has just emerged? No, the blue fans just can’t seem to accept that. And they have made no secret of it, indeed. They have been complaining between message boards expressing all their disappointment.
Berrettini, all is not lost
There is a though. Precisely in light of what we observed earlier, namely that in two months several things could change, the last word is not yet said. Not for Berrettini, at least.
Rekindling fans’ hopes about the Roman hammer’s presence in Casalecchio di Reno was Volandri himself, who while between the lines said a lot of things. “The ITF regulations provide that the convocations are made a month and a half before the event, but precisely because of the time window that separates us from the challenges in Bologna, and in view of the fact that in between there will be the Olympics, two Masters 1000 and a Slam tournament, it is impossible to give them a concrete value.”
“It will be important to assess the state of form of the boys in the next month, that will be the fundamental criterion in choosing the best team that can represent our national team,” he added further, specifying that the choice of tennis players to be summoned was based solely and exclusively on ranking. All is not lost, in short. Especially if Matteo, as is hoped, does well on concrete in the North American trip.