Un travel with four champions who have made the history of Italian tennis. A teamdocu-series by Domenico Procacci (his directorial debut), from tonight on Sky Documentaries at 9.15 pm (the first two episodes) and streaming on NOWtells about Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci, Adriano Panatta and Tonino Zugarelli on the fields of the Davis Cup between 1976 and 1980. With them the coach Nicola Pietrangeli.
In the center the famous victory against Chile in 1976during the dictatorship of Pinochet. A state affair more than a game of tennis. In five years i magnificent four they reached the Davis Cup final four times, a record.
But it’s not just about sporting achievements, even i defects of these samplesdifferences in character, i vices, whims, virtues, surprising anecdotes, i conflicts between them and with the coach who was sacked by the same players after the defeat in Australia in 1977. Even today Pietrangeli considers it the greatest betrayal suffered in his life.
A team: the first two episodes
There David Cup against the Chile of 1976 is the centerpiece of the series. Italy was the favorite and for the first time he would win the coveted team award. But a political battle arose around that meeting: to play or not to play in the Pinochet dictatorship? Nicola Pietrangeli he fought like a bull to get his team to participate in the final: he spoke with Andreotti and with the Foreign Minister of the Communist Party Gian Carlo Pajetta.
There were protests at the Federtennis, he wrote about it Enzo Biagi and even Modugno composed a song making fun of our tennis players who, in the meantime, they received phone calls with threats. The climate was that of the years of lead. “If there had not been Pietrangeli there would have been no victory in Chile,” says Zugarelli.
Tonino Zugarelli, Riccardo Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci and Adriano Panatta. (Sky)
The Roland Garros of 1976, the fist fight of Panatta and apartheid
Before arriving at the historical final Domenico Procacci tells the differences between the double pairs of the team: on one side there was Panatta-Bertolucciwho shared extra-tennis adventures and a small apartment in Rome where everything happened (“Adriano cooked and I was tidying up », says Bertolucci), and Barazzutti-Zugarelli, less predisposed to enjoyable fun. “The two clans barely spoke to each other»Remembers Pietrangeli.
Furthermore, the new director dusts off, through unpublished interviews and archive footage, the 1976 victories of Adriano Panatta to the Rolland Garros (in the quarters he defeated Borg) and the Foro Italico where the cheering was from the stadium: even some rivals withdrew due to the noisy supporters. It also tells of that historical final of double a Monte-Carlo in 1980 between Bertolucci / Panatta and Gerulaitis / McEnroe: «That pimply kidAs Panatta calls him, he already had the stuff to sell. And there is also the fist fight in Barcelona between Panatta and one of the public during the 1977 Davis Cup. Someone will remember her.
Adriano Panatta and Paolo Bertolucci. (@FIT and Sportcast Srl)
Politics returns from time to time throughout the seriesnot only when talking about the famous match in Chile, but also when in the 1974 the team he moved to South Africa for a month where apartheid is in force. “It was an unknown world where blacks were slaves»Says Panatta. The tennis stadium had a slice, just a slice, which black audiences could access.
Panatta’s haircut and forgotten shoes
Even the anecdotes chase each other, some are from movies. Like that time from Rio De Janeiro Bertolucci and Panatta decidedbefore returning to Rome, to take the Concorde and reach out to friends they had met some time before a Paris. The two finished the fee they had collected for the trip.
Or when Panatta risked not being called up for the cup Davis by coach Orlando Sirola (1969-71) because he refused to cut himself i hair: “I wouldn’t have done it even in front of a firing squad – says the former player – I found it unfair and idiotic“. Then the father intervened and asked his son for a personal favor. «For him I cut them – says Panatta – but I never forgave what Sirola did to me“.
Claudio Barazzutti, Tonino Zugarelli, Paolo Bertolucci, Adriano Panatta and Nicola Pietrangeli. (Sky)
One anecdote beats the others. 1976 final at Rolland Garros, Panatta does not find hers Superga in the locker room, Bertolucci had taken them by mistake (“Because Adriano has always been messy», Says Paolo). The champion could not play without his shoes and therefore he called a shopkeeper friend to Rome who had the Supergas delivered by plane. They were delivered to him shortly before entering the field.
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