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Italy's two-time French Open champion Nicola Pietrangeli dies at 92: ‘He was tennis, in the deepest sense of the word’
Nicola Pietrangeli is considered to be Italy's greatest-ever player in history, and Jannik Sinner is regarded as his successor.
Two-time French Open champion Nicola Pietrangeli died on Monday, at the age of 92. He was the first Italian to win a Grand Slam singles title, with his victory at Roland Garros in 1959, and he retained the trophy a year later. The Italian great is considered to be Italy's greatest-ever player in history, and Jannik Sinner is regarded as his successor.
Reacting to his death, Italian Tennis Federation chief Binaghi told Sky Sports Italy, "Today, Italian tennis loses its greatest symbol, and I lose a friend. Nicola Pietrangeli wasn't just a champion: he was the first to teach us what it meant to truly win, on and off the court. He was the starting point for everything our tennis has become. With him, we understood that we too could compete with the world, that dreaming big was no longer a gamble."
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"When you talk about Nicola, you immediately think of the records, the Davis Cups, the titles and triumphs that will forever remain in our history. But the truth is that Nicola was much more. It was a way of being. With his cutting wit, his free spirit, his inexhaustible desire to live and joke, he managed to make tennis something human, real, profoundly Italian.
"Talking to him was always a pleasure and a surprise: you could leave a conversation laughing out loud or with a reflection that stayed with you for days. In my office, there is a photo that is very dear to me: me as a child, a ball boy in a Davis Cup match in Cagliari, and in front of me, Nicola Pietrangeli.
"Nicola was not only the greatest player in our history. He was tennis, in the deepest sense of the word."
Pietrangeli represented Italy in the Davis Cup between 1954 and 1972. He featured in a record 164 Davis Cup rubbers, winning a record 120. He was part of the team which played in the Davis Cup final in 1960 and 1961. In both finals, Italy lost.
