Sinner, this time he made it bigger than usual: no one swallowed it.
There is no event or sports milestone at which Nicola Pietrangeli refrains from speaking his mind. The legendary tennis player from Italy, but originally from Tunis, always finds a way to insert himself into the sports debate and express his opinion regarding the exploits or behavior of his heirs.
He did so, of course, even once the Davis Cup was archived, a competition that is particularly close to his heart and in which, in the past, he has repeatedly excelled. The first intervention had concerned, as will be remembered, Roman champion Matteo Berrettini, with whom there are, so to speak, “precedents.” It seems that the 2021 Wimbledon finalist is angry with his predecessor, due, probably, to some remarks he may not have liked.
Anger that he allegedly expressed by not responding to Pietrangeli when, a few months ago, the same sent him a message to congratulate him after his string of victories on clay. Reaction of which Nicola, to this day, is still unable to understand, certain as he is that he never said anything wrong and that he was, at this point, simply misunderstood. The fact remains that, beyond Berrettini, the former world number 3 has also spoken out in recent hours about Jannik Sinner.
Sinner, here we go again: he didn’t make anyone laugh
The words he said about him, however, made even more noise than those spent on Matthew, considering that he touched-it is not known whether he did so intentionally or not-very delicate strings.
Pietrangeli spoke on Splendida Cornice, a Rai 3 program, on the occasion of which he indulged in a biting joke that not everyone managed to swallow as, probably, the former tennis player would have expected. “I wanted to say,” he said, after introducing himself, in a very ironic way, ”that Sinner is the best Italian tennis player of all time and maybe even Austrian. “I personally loved tennis very much,” he added, ”but compared to these players of today I am an amateur. But in short certainly not good. Long live tennis, long live Sinner, and let’s also put Berrettini because if not he’s picking on me.”
The fact that he brought up Austria, thus dusting off the old controversy about Sinner’s origins-who, despite being 100 percent Italian, comes from a region with close ties to Germanic culture-was not appreciated by anyone. So much so that his joke, if you can call it that, only aroused outrage and anger.
