Rise of italian tennis?

Italy has a top Player in berretini, a great young Player Who will soon be top15 (sinner) and another great young talent in musetti.

However even more impressive is that Italy now has 8 top100 players which is only one less than tennis powerhouse Spain.

That has risen quite a bit, end of 2010 there were 4, end of 2000 even just 2 players.

What happened in Italy? Was there a good training program? Or a tennis boom? Italy never really had good players except for Panatta, right? (Talking Male, of course they had some good success in the WTA the last 15 years)
 
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joekapa

Legend
What do you mean "what happened to Italy?". They have the player that EVERY player on the ATP wish they were (including the big 3).

Fabio-Fognini-Internazionali-dItalia-2020-foto-Giampiero-Sposito.jpg
 

FedeRadi

Rookie
Italy has a top Player in berretini, a great young Player Who will soon be top15 (sinner) and another great young talent in musetti.

However even more impressive is that Italy now has 8 top100 players which is only one less than tennis powerhouse Spain.

That has risen quite a bit, end of 2010 there were 4, end of 2000 even just 2 players.

What happened in Italy? Was there a good training program? Or a tennis boom? Italy never really had good players except for Panatta, right? (Talking Male, of course they had some good success in the WTA the last 15 years)

We had often a lot of good but not great players. Tons of Top 200/Top 300, some Top 100, Top 30/20 occasionally.
Italian tennis moviment was, IMO, already good. We never were enough lucky to find a champion. Switzerland, they had a way lesser moviment than Italy, but they had Federer and Wawrinka(Only 2 other players in Top 300 right now, Italy has 23 players in top 300).
We had ATP level titles almost every year in '70s and '80s, a regression in '90s and some very bad years in late '00s(4 consecutive seasons without ATP titles in 2007-10).
After that, we are increasing the level.

2011: Seppi won the title in Eastbourne after almost 5 years(After that only in 2015, and 2020 so far, no Italian player won a title).
2011: Return in Davis Cup World Group after 11 years beating Chile.
2013: Fognini won a 500 title in Hamburg, 36 years after Bertolucci.
2014: Davis Cup semifinal, after 16 years.
2014: Fognini reached a best ranking(At that moment) at #13. The best for an Italian player since 35 years.
2018: Cecchinato reached a GS SF at RG, 40 years after Barazzutti. (Berrettini will reach USO SF in 2019 too)
2019: Fognini won a Master 1000 in Montecarlo, 43 years after Panatta in Rome.
2019: Fognini reached Top 10, 41 years after Barazzutti. Berrettini right after him.
2019: Berrettini qualifies for ATP Finals, 40 years after Barazzutti.

As you can see, Italian Tennis is having it's best moment since late '70s.
Fognini is easily the best Italian player since Panatta(Barazzutti his Panatta's peer).
And we have hopes someone can be a better player than Fognini in near future. Berrettini is good, I can't exclude he can take a slam in a not so strong era without Big 3. We have Musetti but, mostly, Sinner. Every tennis fan in Italy has really high expectations about him. After 2019 Next Gen Finals he is well known not only among hardcore tennis fans. And he seems to has the temper in order to live up to expectations(Some players, like Quinzi after 2013 Wimbledon Junior, collapsed under them).
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
Italy has a top Player in berretini, a great young Player Who will soon be top15 (sinner) and another great young talent in musetti.

However even more impressive is that Italy now has 8 top100 players which is only one less than tennis powerhouse Spain.

That has risen quite a bit, end of 2010 there were 4, end of 2000 even just 2 players.

What happened in Italy? Was there a good training program? Or a tennis boom? Italy never really had good players except for Panatta, right? (Talking Male, of course they had some good success in the WTA the last 15 years)
Around 2008 2009 the Italian tennis federation made the super tennis channel which broadcast WTA and ATP events for free in the country. This has boosted interest in Rome with attendance figures skyrocketing since. I would imagine they've been attracting more talent with this as well. Contrast that to United States were you really can't even watch tennis. tennis channel and ESPN have destroyed tennis in the USA. USTA can take some blame too for partnering with tennis channel initially.
 

socallefty

G.O.A.T.
Berettini, Sinner and Musetti are all over six feet tall and physically imposing enough to fit the profile of Grand Slam champs this century.
 

FedeRadi

Rookie
Around 2008 2009 the Italian tennis federation made the super tennis channel which broadcast WTA and ATP events for free in the country. This has boosted interest in Rome with attendance figures skyrocketing since. I would imagine they've been attracting more talent with this as well. Contrast that to United States were you really can't even watch tennis. tennis channel and ESPN have destroyed tennis in the USA. USTA can take some blame too for partnering with tennis channel initially.

I don't know how much Tennis TV had contributed to this raise.
Really, they show, if I remember correctly, only some ATP 250 and 500, and Davis Cup. Better than nothing. But all Master 1000 and Grand Slams are on pay TVs, and not in single, cheap, package(3 Grand Slams on a channel, Wimbledon, WTF and 1000s on another).
They sometimes used, especially with Italian players in final, show some big matches from Rome or RG on national TV, other than Davis Cup and Fed Cup. And some success in early '10s with women tennis could be a factor.
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
I don't know how much Tennis TV had contributed to this raise.
Really, they show, if I remember correctly, only some ATP 250 and 500, and Davis Cup. Better than nothing. But all Master 1000 and Grand Slams are on pay TVs, and not in single, cheap, package(3 Grand Slams on a channel, Wimbledon, WTF and 1000s on another).
They sometimes used, especially with Italian players in final, show some big matches from Rome or RG on national TV, other than Davis Cup and Fed Cup. And some success in early '10s with women tennis could be a factor.
Probably not just one thing.

SuperTennis holds the rights to all WTA events, men's 500 and 250 level tournaments, Davis Cup, Fed Cup and the Next Gen ATP Finals — a season-ending tournament for the world's top under-21 players that will be in Milan for the second time in November. The only big tournaments it doesn't have rights for are the men's Masters 1000 tournaments and the four Grand Slams, which are held by Sky or Eurosport.

In the US tennis channel basically has what supertennis has. Even for cable subscribers it’s difficult to get and often in an extra sports package though to their credit they are trying to fix that and get into many more bass packages over the last two or three years. I think the cheapest way to get tennis channel in the US is to spend about $500 on sling and a sports package per year. But it was much much worse years ago; You were looking at more like $1000 cable package plus their extra service for 100 bucks a year. In Italy this is free and that makes a big difference especially when if you can’t afford cable in Italy the tennis is a big portion of what you can watch and of course attracts a lot of interest. Italy will continue to boom.:cool: US tennis is hosed permanently; it’s now only a sport for the elites and really not even that sInce a lot of people won’t pay for sports packages.
 

Moose Malloy

G.O.A.T.
Around 2008 2009 the Italian tennis federation made the super tennis channel which broadcast WTA and ATP events for free in the country. This has boosted interest in Rome with attendance figures skyrocketing since. I would imagine they've been attracting more talent with this as well. Contrast that to United States were you really can't even watch tennis. tennis channel and ESPN have destroyed tennis in the USA. USTA can take some blame too for partnering with tennis channel initially.

Pretty much the only reason the USO was held this year was that ESPN shells out 70 million annually for the rights to show the USO. Otherwise the USTA probably would have been in the red without ticket sales etc. ESPN "destroying tennis" in the US, I think not...

Also, in the US, if you want to have comprehensive coverage of NBA, MLB, NFL, NCAA basketball you need to have a cable package. It's certainly not free to watch baseball, football, basketball in the US and I don't think those sports are "destroyed" in the US. Yeah the Word Series, Super Bowl, and NBA finals are on basic/over the air cable, but pretty much none of the other playoff rounds are. That's like only being able to watch the Wimbledon or USO final, and no other matches all year.
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
Pretty much the only reason the USO was held this year was that ESPN shells out 70 million annually for the rights to show the USO. Otherwise the USTA probably would have been in the red without ticket sales etc. ESPN "destroying tennis" in the US, I think not...

Also, in the US, if you want to have comprehensive coverage of NBA, MLB, NFL, NCAA basketball you need to have a cable package. It's certainly not free to watch baseball, football, basketball in the US and I don't think those sports are "destroyed" in the US. Yeah the Word Series, Super Bowl, and NBA finals are on basic/over the air cable, but pretty much none of the other playoff rounds are. That's like only being able to watch the Wimbledon or USO final, and no other matches all year.
i'm just trying not to totally gang up on tennis channel. ESPN's position is no different from the major networks in Italy. If ESPN were also loving and caring perhaps they would do something like supertennis.:unsure: ESPN is Disney now.:sick:
 
Quick note: with today's win over countryman Roberto Marcora at the Marbella challenger, Gianluca Mager is guaranteed to be at least n.98 when the new rankings are released on Monday. This means that next week, for the first time ever, Italy will have TEN PLAYERS RANKED INSIDE THE TOP 100. o_O
 
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