Davis Cup, Italy is alarmed: Sinner forfeit, Berrettini needs a miracle

Rome-Malaga flight, departing on Saturday, last call. Italy overflowing from the groups (2-1 against Argentina, 3-0 against Croatia, 2-1 against Sweden), dragged to the Davis finals in Malaga by its young lions, no longer lives here. We had to go to Spain to win the cup (made unrecognizable by the facelift of Gerard Piqu’s management company Kosmos), we risk finding it difficult to contain the USA of Fritz and Tiafoe, opponents in the quarterfinals on Thursday 24 November.

Four days after the departure, his mood already darkened by the forfeit of Jannik Sinner, who has not recovered from the injury to his right hand remedied in Paris Bercy in the match with the Swiss Huesler (the area between the thumb and forefinger swelled, seriously affecting the quality of the grip), the sensations on a last minute recovery by Matteo Berrettini are not good eitherstopped by final of the ATP 250 in Naples (it was October 23), lost with Lorenzo Musetti.
We are doing everything to make it for Davis assures coach Santopadre; before thinking of a plan B, I take it one step at a time – the Italy coach let us know Filippo Volandri —, Matteo is trying and I’ll wait for him until the end. But the effusion in his left foot was slow to heal: they looked like blisters, which appeared during the semifinal in Naples, won in a comeback with McDonald, instead they were the symptoms of plantar fasciitis. There is no confirmation that Berrettini is training in Montecarlo, where he lives. And arriving in Malaga without tennis in his legs would expose him to further (dangerous) risks.

An Italy without number 15 in the world forced to do without even the number 16 would see its ambitions greatly reduced despite the good will of Musetti (n.23), ready to wear the starting shirt and take the team on his shoulders as in the preliminary match in Bratislavalast March, when as a rookie singles player he scored the point of 3-2 with Slovakia, the detail without which we would never have arrived in Malaga. In that case, if Berrettini were forced to end the season here as Sinner (who today will face the ATP Finals, in which he was the protagonist last year as a reserve), with Musetti the first singles player Volandri would find himself at the crossroads: deploy Sonegothe n.47 with declining performance, or try everything and play the ace up Fognini’s sleeve (spotted at Next Gen with his hand in a bandage…), Davis’ old lion who never spares himself in blue and who can unexpectedly pull the rabbit out of the top hat, the veteran who, however, will have to conserve energy even for twice as much with Bolelli . A dilemma that Volandri would never like to face. The fourth man, at that point, would be a boy (there is an embarrassment of choice: Passaro, Arnaldi or Nardi, 61 years in three), called to gain experience with the team. Time passes, Saturday is approaching. Fritz here at the Finals grinding tennis. The Italy that was supposed to rock the world split, crumbled by injuries. Mach bad luck, there is something to think about.