“There aren’t excuses for Matteo Berrettini’s elimination,” said former legend

The Australian Open 2023 is getting more and more alive, we are getting closer and closer to the second week of the tournament but so far Italian tennis has left many regrets on the court. Two of the best Italian athletes, Matteo Berrettini and Lorenzo Musetti fell immediately, suffering important defeats against Andy Murray and Lloyd Harris respectively.

The former Italian tennis legend Paolo Bertolucci gave an interesting interview to the microphones of the Agi news agency and talked about the path of the two Italians. Bertolucci used much harsher tones for Berrettini while he gave various extenuating circumstances to the athlete from Carrara.

Bertolucci talked thus about Matteo: “There are few excuses for Berrettini’s elimination, he is 27 years old and was on the right surface, he is also facing his tennis maturity. Murray is now a distant relative of the one we admired with the Fa Four, Matteo had a dull attitude and there is great regret because despite the first two sets he wasted a match point to win the match.”

Bertolucci instead defended Lorenzo Musetti from criticism, who also went out in the first round of the tournament: “Lorenzo has various alibis, starting from the fast surface and the fact that his coach Simone Tartarini felt ill before the match.”

Bertolucci on Jannik Sinner

Bertolucci also spoke of the other Italians and specifically of Lorenzo Sonego and Jannik Sinner, a tennis player who reached the round of 16 of the tournament during the night. Bertolucci explained: “Jannik Sinner didn’t have a favorable draw, he will face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the round of 16. He was unlucky, on the other side a wide scoreboard opened up while he caught Stefanos Tsitsipas”.

Finally a joke about Sonego: “Lorenzo was playing against a stronger tennis player like Hurkacz, but as always he gave everything and really offered a good try.”

Sinner, who qualified for the third round, said: “It was certainly a complicated match, also from a tactical point of view. When I managed to break at the beginning of the third, I found more confidence and was able to play better tennis.

I obviously had to change some things during the match because the others didn’t work. These are the matches I look forward to the most, knowing that he is one of the best players in the world.

I definitely changed my game a bit compared to last year. I hope it’s a good game, like I said, these are the games I look forward to, the ones I train hard for. We’ll see how this year goes.”