Tennis
When it comes to tennis, Matteo Berrettini is ALL IN
The Wimbledon finalist's career continues to flourish with success coming on the ATP Tour in 2022. Find out about Matteo Berrettini’s pathway to the very top of men's tennis.
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Matteo Berrettini is one of the big-name tennis players appearing at Red Bull Bassline at the Arantxa Sánchez Vicario Stadium in Madrid on April 25, for the unique one-night tie-break based tennis tournament. The current world number 22 in the ATP Tour rankings heads into the summer looking to add this title to his current record of seven tournament wins.
Find out more about one of the stars of Italian tennis down below…
Matteo Berrettini at home in Italy
© Gabriele Seghizzi/Red Bull Content Pool
01
Born into a family of tennis fans
Tennis is a big feature of the Berrettini household, his family are all big fans although his mother Claudia argues the case that her son is only “a tennis player by chance”. His push into the sport and climbing up the ranks came with help from his younger brother Jacopo, who is also a pro tennis player. When they were younger a young Matteo would have rather been in a pool swimming or at judo training than being on a tennis court. Jacopo pleaded with his brother to come back to tennis practice and Matteo found a love of playing through this.
"My family have always been members of a tennis club. By three years old I had a racket in my hand. Around the age of eight, my brother asked me to hit with him on a court. I haven't stopped since then."
Berrettini has reached his 12 ATP finals, winning 7
© Gabriele Seghizzi/Red Bull Content Pool
Can he make it three Queen's Club wins in a row in 2023
© Tony O'Brien/Getty Images
02
Making history on grass
Berrettini reached his first Grand Slam final in 2021 when he got to the men's Wimbledon singles final. In doing so he became the first-ever Italian player to contest a Wimbledon final. Berrettini ultimately lost that final to Novak Djokovic by three sets to one.
03
A career record to be proud of so far
Since debuting on the main ATP Tour in 2017, Berrettini has won seven career singles titles. His first title came on clay in 2018 at the Swiss Open in Gstaad. Grass is a surface that suits him and four of his titles have come on grass. He's won the Wimbledon warm up tournament Queen’s Club twice, in 2021 and 2022. The other two grass tournaments wins came in Stuttgart in 2019 and 2022. There are also career wins on the clay in Budapest in 2019 and in Belgrade in 2021.
An ATP Masters title has so far excluded him through he reached his first Masters 1000 final at the Madrid Open in 2022, losing out to Alexander Zverev in three sets.
04
Roger Federer is his tennis idol
Berrettini was just two years old when Roger Federer made his ATP Tour debut in 1998, and through his formative years as a teenage player with potential it is Federer that Berrettini has looked up to and hoped to emulate. Federer is now retired but Berrettini has been lucky enough to face his idol twice. Once at Wimbledon in 2019 and the second time at the Nitto ATP Finals in the same same year. Both were losses to the Swiss legend. A third meeting was due at the French Open in 2021, but Federer withdrew before a ball was hit and Berrettini received a walkover.
"The loss to Federer at Wimbledon. It was significant and beautiful because I played against my idol in what was probably the most important court in the world. It has taught me so much."
The Italian has been a world top 10 player
© Photo by TPN/Getty Images)
In terms of an athlete outside tennis. Berrettini mentions basketball player LeBron James as a reference figure.
"I like him as a player, but also what he does for the community, outside the basketball court."
05
Never changed his coach
Berrettini has a good team around him when he travels to tournaments. He has had the same coach since he was nine years old in Vincenzo Santopadre. Santopadre was himself a former professional tennis player with the Italian reaching a career high ranking of 100th in 1999. Berrettini trusts him implicitly.
"I think my coach's greatest quality is to make a positive of everything negative that can happen in my career. A mindset that has always inspired me and helped me improve. Once we've suffered a loss, my team and I ask ourselves what to do to be more ready next time, what strategies to adopt to get to the same level as the opponent and so on."
Berrettini is renowned for his fierce serve and powerful groundstrokes
© Gabriele Seghizzi/Red Bull Content Pool
06
His serve is among the fastest on the circuit
The 1.96m-tall (6ft 5in) tennis giant has a thunderous serve, which has become an increasingly key facet of his game. It’s been recorded as going as quickly as 235kph (146mph), which understandably takes something special to get back from the other side of the net.
07
He's been in a major film documentary
The 26-year-old like many of his rivals is back to travelling across the world to play in competitions and looking for success in the big tournaments like Wimbledon, the US Open and in the ATP Masters series. This all stopped when the pandemic hit a couple of years ago. Berrettini was just one of six athletes asked to tell the stories of the experience of that time in the feature-length documentary One Extraordinary Year. It tells the effect the pandemic had on global sport and the impact it had on professional athletes who saw their routines and schedules disappear overnight.
1 h 24 min
One Extraordinary Year
Follow the inspiring stories of six elite athletes in their determination to win gold in a challenging year.
08
Football is his other sporting passion
It's not uncommon to see Berrettini wearing purple. It's the jersey colour of Fiorentina, his favourite football team. During the UEFA European Championships in 2021, he took advantage of training breaks and games in Queen's and Wimbledon to cheer for Italy, who of course ended up winning the tournament. Berrettini also loves watching NBA basketball games.
09
If not tennis, he'd probably have had a career working with animals
"I have always felt a special connection with animals, and since I was a child I have watched many documentaries about wildlife. I would have liked to help animals in some way. My grandmother always told me I would be a biologist, but you have to study a lot! Passion, probably, would have got me there."
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