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).