Italy is winning at Roland-Garros. And it's starting from three. Just days before the 80th anniversary of the Republic, the Italians competing in the French Grand Slam are soaring like the Frecce Tricolori in the Paris sky: Flavio Cobolli, Matteo Berrettini, and Matteo Arnaldi have all advanced to the round of 16 on a long, triumphant day. Cobolli won in three sets, while the other two had to endure marathons lasting over five hours. But it's a great celebration, because after the shock elimination of world number one and the superfavorite in Paris, Jannik Sinner, Italy has plenty of consolation along the banks of the Seine. The first to reach the round of 16 was Cobolli. In the year in which Rome and Paris celebrate the seventieth anniversary of their historic twinning, the Roman tennis player, number 13 in the world, easily defeated the American number 18, Learner Tien, 6-2 6-2 6-3, earning his first victory over middle blocker Philippe-Chatrier.
"Thank you, merci," were the first words uttered in French by the champion of the Circolo Tennis Club Parioli. A football enthusiast and a huge Roma fan (Cobolli was spotted last Sunday at the Roma Club in Paris to watch Roma-Verona), he joked with PSG fans just hours after their European triumph (their second in a row) against Arsenal: "Don't make too much noise. If you win tonight, let me sleep a little..." Football and jokes aside, for Cobolli, as of today, there's "a different atmosphere" at Roland-Garros. "The two strongest players (Sinner and Alcaraz) aren't here, and now not even Nole. When you walk through the locker room, there's a glimmer of hope for everyone, and everyone wants to seize it. I'm ready to fight for every point to seize it," he told reporters in the press room. In the round of 16, he'll face another American player, Zachary Svajda: "We know each other well, we've practiced a couple of times, but I'll have to study him more because I've never played him on clay: it's not his favorite surface, but I'll have to be very careful." As for the tournament's prospects, Cobolli says, confident in the face of a more open draw than ever, "I know I have a better chance today than at other Slams and even than at Wimbledon, because here we play on my surface."
