Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori, dream ended one step away from history

Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori’s adventure in the doubles tournament at Roland Garros 2026 was interrupted in the semifinals. The Italian pair, the fifth seed in the draw, was defeated in two sets by Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, the number one seed in the Parisian seeding, with a score of 7-6(4) 6-4.

For the Spaniard and the Argentine, it was a rematch after the defeat suffered against the Azzurri at the Internazionali d’Italia. Also weighing on the match was Bolelli’s physical condition: during the first set, at the score of 4-3, the Bolognese player suffered a sprain to his right ankle that forced him to continue the match with a conspicuous bandage until the end of the match.

That against Granollers and Zeballos had been precisely the last challenge overcome by the Azzurri on the road to the title at the Internazionali d’Italia, where Bolelli and Vavassori had written a page of history of tricolor tennis. For the first time ever, in fact, an all-Italian pair had won the men’s doubles title at the Foro Italico, beating today’s two opponents in the final with a score of 7-6(8), 6-7(3), 10-3 at the end of a battle that lasted more than two hours.

The Parisian journey of the two Italians had already been anything but easy. In the previous round, Bolelli and Vavassori had had to sweat the proverbial seven shirts to get the better of Petr Nouza and Neil Oberleitner, imposing themselves in a comeback with the score of 6(7)-7, 6-1, 7-6(12) after two hours and forty-three minutes of play and annulling two match points in the super tie-break before the final 14-12.