Matteo Berrettini switches from racquet to guitar
Mauro Mazza, in criticizing Jannik Sinner in an article published in the daily L’Arena, also put another tennis player from our home, Matteo Berrettini, who, probably in spite of himself, has found himself switching from racket to guitar. As well as becoming a symbol of Italian-ness unlike, according to Mazza, the South Tyrolean.
“He is handsome, handsome, nice, good with the racket, he deserves applause and support. He is a real Italian, like the one in the Toto Cutugno song. He is one of us who made it. We feel we resemble him even in his recurring falls, in his fluctuating performances (do you know ‘the daring descents and ascents’?) even in his not always happy and long-lasting love affairs…” claimed the former Tg2 director. Statements that sparked some irony on social media and led to the creation of some memes featuring Berrettini with a black mustache, guitar in hand and a big plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce in front of him.
“Let me sing, guitar in hand. Let me sing a song slowly. Let me sing because I am proud of it. I’m an Italian, a real Italian,” read among other things the lyrics of the song composed by the artist who sadly passed away in August 2023.
Mazza’s article, published on Saturday, April 18 in L’Arena, sparked a real storm on social media, with thousands of Sinner fans furious. The former Tg2 director had begun by writing that “that red-haired tall man we admire, his triumphs warm our hearts (while he remains almost impassive) but we don’t love him,” then concluding that Sinner would be “Italian for a manner of speaking,” not because of the' “Austrian accent” but because “perfect, too different to feel close to us.” This is not the first time that prominent journalists have questioned the Italian-ness of the South Tyrolean champion: in the past, signatures such as Corrado Augias, Aldo Cazzullo, and Bruno Vespa had also addressed the issue.
Curiously, the reference to Toto Cutugno contained in Mazza’s article on Sinner echoes a quote that has already appeared in the Italian sports world in recent weeks: boxer Irma Testa, a bronze medalist at the 2020 Tokyo Games, had closed with an ironic “Forza Italia, pasta and Toto Cutugno!” her social outburst against FIGC president Gabriele Gravina, guilty of belittling the successes of non-football sports compared to the failures of the national soccer team. A sign of the times: the late singer-songwriter’s name seems to have become, for better or worse, a recurring symbol in the debate over Italian sports identity.
