Those 15 tennis matches that left their mark

It is not easy to choose some tennis matches to the detriment of others, nor to write about them without coming across as rhetorical or somewhat repetitive. Stefano Semeraro eludes every shortcut: an author and journalist who has been following the tournaments on the circuit for years for La Stampa (and now heads the historic magazine 'Il tennis italiano'), he transforms the matches into living stories. Taking us into the lives of those who play, amidst anecdotes, epic moments, inconsolable dramas, and restoring the breath and history of this sport.

An implicit (but not so much) declaration of love for Roger Federer leaps to the eye, of whom he selected three matches, two with Rafa Nadal (the rival-brother, the binomial that dissolved in tears on the day of the Swiss star's farewell to tennis) and one - the most painful for the Federer people - with Nole Djokovic at Wimbledon in 2019. A difficult grief for the fans to process, with two matchpoints wasted by Roger on his own serve after almost five hours of play. Wimbledon itself is the backdrop for several other challenges recalled here. A case in point? Perhaps, but up to a point: the temple of tennis has an inimitable charm, winning at Church Road is the absolute consecration.

Among the most beautiful chapters is that of the battle between Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors on grass in 1975: two talents, two worlds. The first, 32 years old, a black descendant of an African-American slave who redeemed an entire people with his rise; the second, 23 years old, irreverent and provocative, a winning mentality like few others, married to Chris Evert, a champion with the grace of a dragonfly. Vince Ashe, his shining smile envelops us from the photo under his thick black moustache, trophy to the sky, making us wish we could go back in time.

Speaking of Evert, one could not miss a passage on the epic with Martina Navratilova. So different, so unique, so close. The one queen of the earth, the other always stretched out at the net like a panther, they clashed more than 60 times: a thrilling domination at the top. A bit like that of Sampras and Agassi in the 1990s, described in intense pages, especially in the portrait of Pistol Pete, the very talented yet incredibly colourless tall man who was never really loved (like a McEnroe or a Borg, just to mention two legends whose match of all matches is, of course, recounted: the 1980 final at Wimbledon with that tiebreak on the edge of reality).

And Italia? Yes there is, closing the book because we are in the present day, with a wound that no one will ever forget, that victory snatched by Alcaraz from Sinner at Roland Garros last year. Five sets, five and a half hours of play, three match points thrown away by the Italian. The stuff of not sleeping for weeks. As Federer, who was in the stands (and has been there) wrote, 'today there are three winners in Paris: Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and tennis'.