M A T T E O B E R R E T T I N I
Photographed by: John Russo
Interview: John Russo
Styled by: BOSS
Video by: Ken Waller Media
JR: What inspired you to play tennis and who were your early influences?
MB: My entire family plays tennis, my grandparents, parents and actually my younger brother started playing tennis before me. He was the one that convinced me to go and play, so I have to thank him. Growing up I was cheering and watching Roger, he was my inspiration. And yes, these are the two big things in my tennis life.
JR: How do you stay focused during high pressure matches?
MB: People think that I am focused and resilient all the time, but I think it’s something that you learn during the process starting as a kid, becoming a man and maturing as a player, it’s something that you train. I think you train to be mentally focused. Tennis teaches you that if you are negative and if you are not resilient, not a lot of good things are going to happen on the court. So in a way you are either resilient or you are going to lose the match or you are going to lose the confidence. So in a way it teaches you, sometimes it’s tough, sometimes it’s good, but it’s part of what we do.
JR: If you could play a match against a tennis legend, who would it be?
MB: John McEnroe, because he was so much fun when he was playing, tricky player, lefty, a lot of drama when he was playing. And I had the luck to actually play against him as he was the Captain of the Team Laver Cup and we always had great fights on court and great fun. So it probably would be him, yes.
JR: What has been the most memorable moment in your career so far and why?
MB: Luckily I have great memories in my career. Probably the Finals in Wimbledon was the highest moment in my career in terms of people just texting me and recognizing what I was doing on the tennis court. But I think winning back to back Queens Club titles was really important and really nice because the second year I was coming back from hand surgery on my right hand. So I didn’t take it for granted and it was a great run, so that I would say so far.
JR: Who do you consider your toughest opponent on tour and what makes your matches against them unique?
MB: I played against of the best three guys to ever play the sport, which are Novak, obviously Roger and Rafael. And I got my first win against one of the three a few months ago, before that, I always lost against them. And they make, they are all different, Roger makes you feel like a kid on court, Rafael makes you feel like you cannot keep up with the pace he’s playing and Novak just neutralizes your weapons. So all three are obviously different, but at the same time really, really good. But it is something that I am really proud of, that I played against them. So I am kind of sad that two of them stopped, because I wish I could play against them more times.
JR: What are some of your interests outside of tennis?
MB: So I love movies and I actually like to read Manga, for who doesn’t know it, they are Japanese comics. And I am kind of like a nerd a little bit, so videogames and sometimes I do Legos as well. So not what you would see from the outside, but yeah that’s me in my apartment.
JR: As a professional tennis player you travel a lot. What are some of your favorite destinations and why?
MB: So that’s the thing about tennis, is that you travel a lot, but you don’t travel long, because you always are in cities to play and you go from the tennis site to the hotel and from the hotel to the tennis site and when you are done with the tournament, you normally go to the other tournament or you go back home. So I visited a lot of places but I feel like I should come back to those places to actually appreciate the cities more. I had a chance to go to Tokyo last year for the first time, but I didn’t have the chance to visit as much as I wanted to. So I definitely want to come back there someday. And I like when, my holidays, I see myself on the beach just chilling, nice sea and coconut water. So I’m not like a big city guy, so somewhere in the Caribbean Sea, that would be my destination.
JR: What personal philosophy and motto do you live by, both on and off the court? Okay, so one word that is really becoming really important for me in the last couple of years I would say is balance, which is tough to get when you are doing something like I do, which is playing tennis at the highest level as possible. Because we always try to get more, to be better, to win more, to not kind of being fully happy about what we are doing, because there is something more that we can achieve. So finding the balance in this is really important, because you have to appreciate the work you put in and the results you are getting, even if they are not the best of the best. So this is something really important for me. And off court, it’s the same thing, (laughs) finding the balance, it’s really, it’s not easy and looking at things from outside, like sometimes just slow down and appreciate your life, I think it’s really important because at the end, even when you are really stressed that something is not going the way you want to, you have to appreciate what you have in your life, because we have one life and it’s important.
to learn more about Matteo follow him @matberrettini