Berrettini ready to return: “Complicated injury, now I’m fine”

Matteo Berrettini starts again from the grass. The ATP 250 starts again from Stuttgart, which this year changed its main sponsor and signed an agreement with Boss, the same fashion house that “dresses” the number 1 in Italy. The Roman’s season, which began with the semifinal at the Australian Open, came to an abrupt halt due to the intervention on the hand he underwent after the eighth final in Indian Wells. And he will start again, after the bye, against the Moldovan Radu Albot, number 121 in the world with a past from number 39, best ranking reached in 2019. “The preparation for the tournament is good. I’m happy to be here, it’s always nice to return to a place where I’ve played well in the past, “he told SuperTennis in an interview via Zoom. “Grass is a surface that I adapt well to, my tennis works here and then I have good memories. My last game played on this surface, I talked about it with my team a few days ago, is the Wimbledon final. Then in Stuttgart the playing conditions are even faster. “Here in 2019 he became the second Italian after Andreas Seppi to win an ATP tournament on grass. Then he lost only 18 points out of fifty rounds of batting when he fielded the first: thus he eliminated Nick Kyrgios, Karen Khachanov, Denis Kudla, Jan-Lennard Struff and beat Auger-Aliassime in the final. In addition to the € 117,050 check, he was given an electric Mercedes, the street version of the Silver Arrows that dominated the Formula 1 World Championship. Today Berrettini is number 10 in the world but 23 in the Race to Turin, the ranking which takes into account only seasonal rankings. A new start is expected, as in 2019, but with many more certainties, especially on grass. Last year he won eleven of the twelve games played here, Novak Djokovic prevented him from en plein but did not take away the joy of the party on the open bus together with the national team of Roberto Mancini, European champion at Wembley a few hours after his final at Wimbledon. The first Italian to compete for the title in the most prestigious tournament in the world, the first to put his name in the Queen’s roll of honor, he arrives in different conditions than at that time. And with the prospect of losing 1200 points in the standings, those of last year’s Wimbledon final, which he will not be able to replace in any way even if he wins this year. ITF have decided that the 2022 edition will not award points valid for the rankings as a reaction to the unilateral decision of the organizers to exclude Russians and Belarusians due to the invasion of Ukraine. “My situation is not the simplest, also for the question of points at Wimbledon. I will try to face this challenge with my head held high” he said. “I really want to come back but I know it will not be easy because the injury was complicated to solve – Berrettini explained to SuperTennis. The difficulty is explained by the fact that it was necessary to operate on the dominant hand, and on the other hand with its timing. The intervention performed in Barcelona, ​​he stressed, “took place on the eve of the season I prefer, the European soil and then the grass, where I had done very well last year. So there were so many points to defend and so many emotions to manage. I had to skip Rome too and for me it was a big blow from a psychological point of view. But luckily I have a great team, a beautiful family and many friends and I managed this time off which I used to do different things than I would have done if I had been on the circuit. “Berrettini is optimistic, the return to the grass brings with it hopes and new horizons. “The doctors told me that with this operation they made the part of the hand stronger – he said – But for 4-5 weeks I didn’t move it. I lost some strength, at one point the right arm was smaller than the left. Feels like the sensitivity isn’t 100% yet but I’m fine. I feel recovered. The hardest thing is definitely finding the tournament pace but I feel ready. It is important to play as many games as possible in Stuttgart and then at Queen’s “.