Lorenzo Musetti: coach reveals turning point

Coach Tartarini speaks

Lorenzo Musetti’s coach Simone Tartarini spoke on Sky Sports about his pupil’s ultimate leap forward, touching on various topics.

“The most important things are not the victories but the knowledge that the road is the right one,” began the coach of the Carrara tennis player. “We have been talking with Lorenzo for two years or more about concepts that are always the same. Improving serving and coming off the serve. He often could not give that quality that he has been able to give in recent months. Maybe Hamburg popped a big cork he had in his stomach. Maybe that was the turning point. It gave him this peace of mind in his work. He no longer had the stress of results and ranking. His quality in work has grown exponentially.”

Then a comment on Lorenzo dedicating the victory in Naples to him: “Two nights before the Naples final we were having dinner with Roberto Petrignani (athletic trainer, ed.). An anecdote from one of our away trips came up. From there on Lorenzo wanted to tell Petrignani a part of what we did. Our bus trips when he was U10, the U12 tournaments. All the anecdotes, the hotels, his fear to sleep. It’s a miracle what he did and what we did. Going from the little circle to U10 and U12 tournaments, to ITF tournaments, to the first Challengers. We are talking about 9-10 years of activity. With crazy financial sacrifices. Now we are doing well, but I still remember when we were reasoning about centering the travel. All this past came up that we had kind of forgotten. Maybe he dedicated the victory to me for that reason….”

“We never talked about it. Forget super coach, I’m a super hero. No, we never talked about it. Others have always talked about it, because maybe they connect things after Sinner left Riccardo Piatti,” Tartarini continued, debunking the super coach hypothesis.

Finally, he revealed the three ‘mantras’ for his student: “Fun first, then tranquility, patience and energy. Every now and then he goes off, he has dips. He has to stay high in intensity all the time, and he has to be calm: sometimes he gets a little rushed, especially when he is serving. Why do I tell him to have fun? Because sometimes he gets too critical of himself and complains if he doesn’t hit the ball well.”