Matteo Berrettini is an Italian tennis player born in Rome, Lazio, Italy, on the 12th of April 1996. He is the son of Luca Berrettini and Claudio Bigo. He has a younger brother called Jacopo, who is also a tennis player. His maternal grandmother Lucia Fogaca was a Brazilian born in Rio de Janeiro.
Berrettini is a professional player who has, in January 2022, been ranked as high as No.6 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). In 2021, he reached the Wimbledon championship final. The Italian tennis player has reached the quarter-finals in four other major events.
Berrettini has big physic that allows him to play an aggressive game style. He is 6’5”and uses a heavy topspin to dictate how a game goes. He is a versatile player who can use different tennis racquets and often deploys a backhand slice that keeps the tennis ball low. This makes it difficult for the opponent to neutralize his serves. He also uses blocked returns to neutralize his opponents. He is an experienced player who uses many other tested tactics like staying closer to tennis nets to close points.
Matteo Berrettini Professional Career
Matteo Berrettini started playing professional tennis in 2015. He won single titles in ATP Challenger and has two ITF (International Tennis Federation) World’s Tennis Tour in his name. Also, he has won three ATP Challengers Tours which helped him to be ranked among the top100 of ATP in May 2018. In July 2018, he reached the first ATP Finals in the Swiss Open and won the first title that pushed him into the first top 60 debuts.
He won two more titles in Stuttgart and the Hungarian Open, which made him fall in the top 25 spot. He got into the US Open semi-final, which propelled him to the top 10 position.
In 2021, he made further strides in the Madrid Open, reaching his first master 1000 final. Later in the year, he participated in the Queen’s Club Championship, winning his first ATP 500 title.
ATP Finals
In 2017, Berrettini made ATP’s main draw debut in the Italian Open, but Fabio Fogging defeated him in the first round. The Italian player was a top seed among the eight contestants competing for the final slot in Milan’s inaugural ATP Next Generation but was beaten by Filippo Bald. In 2018, he took part in the Swiss Open Gstaad. He then defeated Roberto Bautista to win his first ATP. He also partnered with Daniele Bracciali to win his first ATP doubles title in the Swiss Open.
In 2019, Matteo stormed into the first Grand Slam final, where he grabbed his second ATP singles title. He reached the Bavarian final the following week, but Christian Garin halted his winning streak in the third set, which was a tie-breaker. Later, he upset Alexander Zverev to get on the list of the top 5 players.
Berrettini won his third straight singles title in Stuttgart after beating Felix Auger Aliassime in the final. The win made him the fifth person to win titles in two tournaments.
In Wimbledon, Berrettini featured in the Grand Slam, where he reached the fourth round after defeating Diego Shwartzman in five sets. Unfortunately, he lost to Roger Federer in the 74th minute. During the game, he sustained an ankle injury that saw him miss two events in Montreal and Gstaad.
However, he later played in the Cincinnati Lead-up tournament, where he reached the quarter-final after defeating Andrey Rubley. Berrettini later beat Gael Monfils in the fifth set and became the first Italian male player since 1977 to reach the US Open semi-finals. Unfortunately, he lost to Rafael Nadal, who later won the tournament.
In another tournament (Shanghai Masters), Berrettini reached the semi-finals. He beat Dominic Thiem in one quarter-final and earned a slot in the top ten rankings. In 2019, while holding the world number 8 position. He participated in London’s 2019 ATP finals but lost his first two rounds to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. But he had defeated Dominic Thiem earlier and became Italy’s first player to win a match at the ATP Finals.
Berrettini won his biggest title on 20th June at the Queen’s Club Championship. Here he won his first ATP 500 level. Therefore, he became the first Italian to win the title after defeating Cameron, Dan Evans, and Andy Murray from Britain.
In June 2022, Matteo Berrettini withdrew from the Wimbledon finals after testing for COVID 19. He broke the bad news to his fans through an Instagram post. Berrettini explained that he had flu symptoms, which forced him to go into isolation. Even though the symptoms were not severe, the table tennis star decided to isolate himself to reduce the risk of spreading the virus to his friends and competitors in the tournament. He told his fans that he was disappointed but was hopeful that he would return stronger.
In March 2022, the Italian star underwent surgery but returned to the pitch three weeks before the Wimbledon Championship. He had hoped to compete in the tournament but contracted covid and decided to go into isolation.
Following the announcement, the tournament organizers replaced him with the Swedish tennis player Elias Ymer, who was immediately scheduled to meet Christian Garin in London’s grass-court Grand Slam. The tournament organizers posted a message of support to its Twitter handle and wished him a quick recovery.
Matteo Berrettini has signed a long-term partnership deal with ASIC Gel-Resolution to wear Asics tennis shoes and serve as the company’s brand ambassadeur.
Matteo Berrettini Personal Life
Matteo Berrettini is currently single. But he has been dating Ajla Tomljanović, a fellow tennis player, since 2019. However, it is confirmed that the love did not blossom, and the two parted ways after being in a relationship for more than 2 years. Matteo Berrettini and Ajla were among the most admired tennis couples.
Ajla Tomljanović is a tennis ball player born in Croatia but represented Australia internationally. When not spending time with his team, Matteo says he spends time with his family. He used to go out for dinner with Ajla where they could discuss tennis tips but stopped doing so when they parted ways.