Matteo Berrettini was expected to reach the final of Wimbledon this time around.
The 25-year-old Italian is on an unbeaten run (11 so far) on grass winning, the warm-up event at Queen’s Club in London – his first ATP 500 title. Despite the grass season being cancelled last year, he had a 23-2 record on the surface since 2019. With his booming serve and big forehand strikes and bankable backhand slices, he had the primary weapons to shine on the surface. On the London grasscourts in 2021, he was playing with the freedom and flair of someone 6ft 5in, with a fastest recorded serve of 235 kmph.
But in this era of men’s tennis, expectation is often a millstone for players not part of the Big Four. Berrettini wanted to be so removed from this pressure that he didn’t even want to dream of reaching his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon till it happened. And as fate would have it, it has happened. The eighth seed beat Hubert Hurkacz, who had knocked out Roger Federer in the quarter-finals, 6-3, 6-0, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4 to reach his first Major final, at Wimbledon, on a surface most tennis followers expected him to.
“I have no words. I need a couple of hours to understand what happened. I played a great match. I never dreamed about this, because it was too much for a dream,” Berrettini said in a disarming on-court interview.
What happened in the match was simple: against first-time semi-finalist Hurkacz, Berrettini channeled all his grass-court nous, dictated play with his serve funnelled his forehand to devastating effect.
The seventh seed did not lose his serve across four sets and saved the only two break points he faced. He carved out 10 break points and converted six, including a bagel in the second set. He fired 22 aces, blasted 60 winners – 77% on the forehand wing – to a measly 18 unforced errors.
He dominated from the baseline when Hurkacz tried to come to the net but was more than willing to rush forward himself. He sliced and induced errors from all over the court. The only blip was the third set he dropped in the Tiebreak, in a drop of focus near the finish line, perhaps a sign of just how new this was for him. But with an early break set up with his forehand, he controlled the fourth set.
It was a clean and complete performance, more confident than the shot-fest quarter-final against Felix Auger-Aliassime where the second and third sets went to 12 games and his serve bailed him out when it looked like things got tight. It also helped that he had been at this stage before and had to go through the rite of passage that is playing the Big Three in Grand Slams.
The Italian made his first Grand Slam semis in the breakthrough 2019 season, losing to eventual champion Rafael Nadal at US Open. He was even expected to do well at French Open, having won the Serbian Open on clay and reaching the final at Madrid. He ran into a certain Novak Djokovic in the fourth round and despite taking just one set, caused enough trouble to get a reaction like this from the world No 1.
At the 2019 Wimbledon, he reached the fourth round before running into Federer against whom he only managed to win five games despite a solid grass season. He jokingly asked him at the net how much he owed for the tennis lesson. But the learnings were seriously inculcated. The 25-year-old cited that match as an important learning curve after his semi-final in 2021.
This is to say that Berrtettini is not the traditional first-time finalist, he has worked his way to the top and this journey has borne most fruit on grass. Of his five titles, two have come on grass. He has won both the final he reached on the surface - the 2019 Stuttgart Open against Auger-Aliassime and the 2021 Queen’s against Cameron Norrie, where he also beat Andy Murray and Dan Evans.
Coming into 2021 Wimbledon as the favourite from his half to make the final, despite the other players in the section being eight-time champion Federer, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev.
Berrettini may not have wanted to get ahead of himself and dream of this, but to those who watched him grow on the surface, this is an expected final – the two best form players on grass in the final at All England Club.
Whether he can stop Novak Djokovic at a Grand Slam in 2021, especially where he is the two-time defending champion, remains to be seen. Players more accomplished and experienced than the Italian have tried and failed. But what Berrettini has ensured is that the final of Wimbledon will be a competitive affair between a veteran and a promising youngster.
Much like the French Open final last month, where Stefanos Tsitsipas fulfilled similar expectations in reaching his first Major. The man across the net, though, is on a grass-court and Grand Slam winning streak of his own.
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