Sara Errani announces farewell to singles: ‘Paris will be my last tournament’

An important page of Italian tennis is about to close. After her defeat in the first round of the Internazionali d’Italia against Naomi Osaka, Sara Errani announced in a press conference that Roland Garros 2024 will most likely be her last singles tournament. It was a painful but lucid decision, made with the knowledge that she has given everything to tennis in a long career filled with success and epic battles.

“It’s not easy to accept that the body doesn’t react the way you want it to and that the shots don’t go where you want them to. I tried again in singles, but my priority remains doubles,” explained the 38-year-old from Bologna with sincerity. Currently slipping to 177th in the WTA rankings, Errani will participate in the Roland Garros qualifiers, a tournament that saw her reach the final in 2012, becoming the first Italian since Francesca Schiavone to come close to triumphing in Paris.

Errani, an absolute protagonist of Italian women’s tennis in its golden years along with Pennetta, Schiavone and Vinci, has won five Slam titles in doubles, and it is in doubles that she could continue her career, albeit with a question mark: “I don’t know if I will play next year, it will depend on how it goes in doubles.”

The Italian public, which has always loved her warrior spirit and grit on the court, is preparing to say goodbye to one of its icons. The end of the singles adventure does not erase the imprint Sara left on world tennis, especially on clay, her favorite surface.

Paris, then, will be the final stage of an exemplary singles career. A farewell that will be filled with emotion, but also with pride for what has been built over more than two decades of tennis at the highest level.