Matteo Berrettini, stupefied, makes confession about Jannik Sinner

Tennis Italy is back at the Quirinal from President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, but on everyone’s lips is Jannik Sinner after the South Tyrolean’s extraordinary exploit in Madrid, the crowning achievement of the last few months as a true ruler of the circuit. Even Matteo Berrettini, a friend of the San Candido champion, lost his words: “From the outside it is inexplicable what he is doing. After all, no one had ever done it. We have run out of words to describe him also because he gets certain results with apparent ease. I say this because surely there will be from within some difficult moments and bad days. But he manages to make them positive.”

“Besides the immense talent he has and work he’s putting in, it’s really something impressive, which makes us all proud and inspires us.” Berrettini and Sinner will cross paths at the Foro Italico for the Internazionali d’Italia: “I started playing living as a dream to step on the court of the Foro Italico. You get the feeling of having made it and it is something priceless.”

In Madrid, Sinner wrote another page of world tennis history, becoming the first tennis player ever to win five consecutive Masters 1000s. A dominance that is also reflected in the ATP rankings, where the South Tyrolean leads the rankings with 14,350 points, with a 1,290-point advantage over Carlos Alcaraz, who is currently pinned by injury. And the gap is set to widen further in the coming weeks: the Spaniard, defending champion at both the Internazionali d’Italia and Roland Garros, will not be competing in either tournament, losing a total of up to 3,000 points. To find the third-ranked Alexander Zverev, the gap is even sharper: the German, a finalist in Madrid, stands at 5,805 points.

Sinner’s path to the Internazionali d’Italia has already been established: the world No. 1 will make his tournament debut in the second round on Friday or Saturday against the winner of the match between Austria’s Sebastian Ofner and the U.S.’s Alex Michelsen. In the third round, the long-awaited Italian derby with Berrettini, who meanwhile will have to contend with Australian Popyrin in the first round, could already materialize. Lorenzo Musetti, the No. 8 seed, on the other hand, ended up on the opposite side of the draw from Sinner: the two could eventually meet only in the final.