“Italian tennis mourns an icon. Nicola Pietrangeli, the only Italian inducted into the World Tennis Hall of Fame, has passed away,” FITP announced.
Born in Tunisia in 1933 to an Italian father and a Russian mother, Pietrangeli was widely regarded as the country’s greatest Italian tennis player of all time until the emergence of current world number two Jannik Sinner.
He was also one of the best clay-court players of his generation, with three Monte Carlo titles and a home tournament, the Italian Open in Rome, where a course was named in his honour.
In total, Pietrangeli won 44 singles titles during his career, including two triumphs at Roland Garros in 1959 and 1960, and reached the semifinals of Wimbledon the same year he won his second French Open title.
A versatile athlete, Pietrangeli played for the Lazio football team until he was 18, but switched to tennis after the Rome club tried to send him on loan.
Pietrangeli’s first win at Roland Garros was the first time an Italian player had won a Grand Slam and came after defeating South African Ian Vermaak in the final.
He also won the doubles tournament that year, which was extremely popular at the time, together with his compatriot Orlando Sirolo, with whom he formed an impressive pair.
Gifted with an excellent backhand, precise ball control and impressive stamina, he won his second French Open title in 1960 against Chile’s Luis Ayala, before being beaten twice by Spain’s Manuel Santana in the 1961 and 1964 finals.
For most of his career, tennis was divided between the amateurs, who played in the traditional top tournaments and the Davis Cup, and the professionals who joined the parallel circuit when they gained a reputation as top players.
Unlike his contemporaries Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, Pietrangeli did not turn professional until the start of the Open era in 1968, when he was in his mid-thirties.
After retirement, Pietrangeli, a lover of luxury, became a media personality, hosting the popular sports program La Domenica Sportiva and appearing in three films.
“If I had trained harder, I would have won more, but I would have had less fun,” he once said.
Pietrangeli was also a major Davis Cup player, playing a record 164 matches for Italy, although he never managed to win as a player, losing the finals in 1960 and 1961. He made appearances between 1954 and 1972, but did not taste success in an international tournament until 1976, when he captained his country to its first title.
(Vijesti.ba / FENA)
