Berrettini’s coach Vincenzo Santopadre reflects on their decade-long association
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World No.10, Matteo Berrettini is currently brimming with confidence after his victory in Belgrade, last month. The Italian is currently playing the ongoing Madrid Masters, where he defeated countryman, Fabio Fognini in straight sets yesterday.
Early in the year, Berrettini also made the fourth round of the Australian Open before moving to the clay season. He was also a part of the World Tour Finals last year, in London. Given his form and confidence, one can expect the 25-year-old to make deep runs in the forthcoming tournaments this year.
Meanwhile, Berrettini’s longtime coach, Vincenzo Santopadre spoke to tennismajors about his association for a decade with his pupil.
“I love to teach, to stay with guys, to be among young people. With Matteo, it’s something special. It’s really a full-time job with Matteo. As the years passed, I’ve tried to understand what he needed. At first, I’ve said: ‘Okay, he needs somebody to stay with him, to travel with him maybe for 10 weeks every year.’ And the question was also for me: ‘Do I want this?”
“If it wasn’t him, I don’t know if I’d be here right now. I like to be a coach, I love to be a coach. But the things that happened with Matteo are particular. I worked with him for 11 years. That was a journey that we started together and we found that it was a big opportunity for both of us.”
Reflecting on how the coaching method has evolved with Berrettini over the past decade, Santopadre explained, “He understood well that the most important thing was to work with passion and without the pressure of short-term results. That’s a kind of work that is very ambitious. We wanted to grow a man. When he arrived, he was a baby. With the years passing, he is a man. I also had to change my role. It’s very different to speak to a guy that is 14 and to a man that is 24. I had to realise that the best thing for him was changing my skin. At the beginning, I was not a coach, but a Maestro, as we say in Italian. I was his trainer and now I’m his coach, that changes a lot of things.”
As we have historically seen in tennis, not many players have been associated with one particular coach for almost 10 years. From personal to professional issues, reasons for splitting have been well documented. However, the Italian has stuck to his guns and has believed in his tutor over the many years, which has presented him with the much-needed confidence and solace.
Santopadre doesn’t want to coach anyone else now
“Balance is another key in my life. Four, five, six times a year, I tell to Matteo that of course, we have a really good relationship, but I don’t want him to feel that I’m saying something wrong and he stays with me because he is a friend of mine, I really don’t want this. We are working together, it’s a job. Then obviously, we have something more. We have this relationship going for a long time. That’s why I don’t know if I’d be coaching somebody else right now,” said Santopadre.
Santopadre, finally signed off by talking about how Berrettini wants to keep improving as a player and even thanked the 25-year-old for being honest.
“I’m very happy because together with him, it’s something special. He forces us to be better, as a team, because he is growing day-by-day. We had to wonder what he needed now, so we had to evolve, in a natural way.”
Also read: Medvedev’s coach Gilles Cervara highlights key areas for his pupil to work on clay
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Vivek Krishnan
(767 Articles Published)