Elena Pero: A Heartfelt Tribute by Her Colleague Giorgia Mecca
The passing of Elena Pero has shaken us all: the beloved voice of Italian tennis passed away on September 24 at the age of 60 after battling a serious illness. In recent days, countless colleagues have paid tribute to her, including Giorgia Mecca.
“‘‘And there it is, happiness.’ It was that day in July; we all remember her voice—it was filled with emotion. We couldn’t see her eyes, but they were surely brimming with admiration, just as they are every time something beautiful happens in tennis—and not just in tennis,” she wrote in the pages of *Il Foglio*.
“At that moment, for Elena Pero, it felt natural to mention Rino Tommasi, Gianni Clerici, and Roberto Lombardi, as if to take a step back and remember her mentors, and she was sad that they hadn’t had the chance to cover an Italian’s victory at Wimbledon—and before that, an Italian’s Wimbledon final (it was 2021, and even that day, as she stepped onto the court, she had remembered those who had come before her). Elena Pero was shy, curious—more questions than answers—with everyone, whether her conversation partner was Paolo Bertolucci or an intern who, seeing her pass through the hallways, was learning to put a face to the “Voice of Tennis.”
“Thirty-five years in the business, and the sense of wonder was still very much there, in that ‘what are we witnessing?’ moment. At 3 a.m. Italian time during a match between Sinner and Alcaraz at Indian Wells, and in that smile you could sense in her voice—a smile that made even her listeners smile. She never missed a Jannik Sinner practice session, always standing one step back and always attentive; if you asked her for a statistic, she’d pull a stack of notebooks with impeccable handwriting out of her locker, and inside was the statistic you were looking for. She was generous and rigorous; compliments embarrassed her, and she would immediately change the subject. “Good job,” “No, they did well.”
“She began commentating in the mid-1990s, at a time when it was hard to even imagine an Italian reaching the second week of Wimbledon. She chronicled the dark times, the birth of the rivalry between Federer and Nadal and the arrival of Djokovic, and when the Italian players began to win, she remained true to her style of commentary—and Rino Tommasi could have been proud of that, too. She wore glasses with thick frames, but you could tell when she was moved or when something amazed her. Sinner, for example. Or sports in general.”
“No pedestals and no hashtags. Her tone of voice and her clarity educated a public—always torn between rooting for and rooting against—about tennis and its unwritten rules. Through her example, Elena Pero taught us that we can stand up for Sinner and Alcaraz, for Federer and Djokovic. In a thirty-five-year career, were there any players who were unbearable, incomprehensible, or boring? Any matches that perhaps would have been better off never being broadcast? No. They all deserved a question. Those who worked with her have written that she was an even better person than she was a journalist. As Sky Sport is reminding us right now, she covered more Wimbledon finals than Roger Federer—fourteen in total, the last one on July 12.”
“Her final commentary concluded with these words: ‘A match that wasn’t easy in the least ends with a winning forehand by Jannik Sinner, and that’s why we’ll remember it as infinitely beautiful,’” concluded Giorgia Mecca.
