Tennis, Becker at Bonfiglio 41 years later

Luigi Ansaloni

May 26, 2023

Boris Becker returned to the Bonfiglio trophy, 41 years later. The former German champion arrived at the Milan Tennis Club Alberto Bonacossa 41 years later to meet up with an old friend of his, Stefano Bonfiglio, a distant relative of that Antonio Bonfiglio to whom the trophy has always been named. “I remember this beautiful club well – commented the six-time Grand Slam champion – but I was just 14 years old and honestly I have no memory of the matches I played. The players? Some have important qualities, but to understand if they are future champions you also have to look at their age”. In fact he knows something about it: it was 1982 and the German was defeated in the second round by a more expert opponent, the Italian Corrado Aprili (6-7 7-6 9-7 the score) in a game that lasted over four hours. The success that had always eluded him at the Under 18 level would incredibly come in 1985 at Wimbledon, the real one, when at just 17 years, 7 months and 15 days Becker became the first not yet of age to triumph at the Championships, for a record of precociousness still undefeated today. The 55-year-old German, smiling and in good physical shape, spent an hour in the afternoon watching the scheduled matches, willingly indulging in the many requests for selfies from fans and even talking about padel: “Sometimes I enjoy playing it”.

ITALIANS

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As for the tournament, even the last Italian in the singles competition, Gabriele Vulpitta, said goodbye to the tournament in the quarter-final match which took place on the Tribuna court and lost 6-2 6-2 against the top seed .1 of the Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez tournament. Starting with an evident awe towards an opponent who occupies the 3rd position in the world rankings, the 17-year-old blue was unable to express the good offensive game that had brought him up to here. Too far from the base line, the Apulian’s shots left no mark, certainly thanks also to the qualities of an opponent who usually attends the Challenger circuit and is already n.880 Atp. After a first set conditioned by too many mistakes, the level of Tarantino rose in the second set, but at that point the experience of the Mexican left-hander made the difference. On Saturday, waiting for the Mexican in the semifinals, there will be one of the most interesting players of this 63rd edition of the Junior International Championships of Italy, the Austrian Joel Schwaerzler. In the other semifinal, the American Williams and the Chinese Zhou will face each other.

at risk

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From a Mexican to a Spanish American: Kaitlin Quevedo. The two boys are very close friends, so much so that Pacheco Mendez was the first on the sidelines to celebrate the success of the 17-year-old Yankee. Opposed to the 16-year-old Bulgarian Iva Ivanova (already responsible for the elimination of the No. 1 seed), the player from Florida, one of the most accredited pretenders to the title, seriously risked elimination. After a first set that ended in just over a quarter of an hour, the match for the 17-year-old, already WTA No. 526, got complicated. She finished 6-0 6-7 6-4 in one hour and 52 minutes. In the semifinals, Quevedo will meet the No. 6 seed, the Japanese Sayaka Ishii. In the meantime, she continues the doubles tournament of Noemi Basiletti and Gaia Maduzzi who, beating the duo Jandova / Oved 6-4 6-0, conquered the final where they will find the duo Grant / Oluwadare. Doubles final also for Federico Cinà who, paired with the Japanese Sakamoto, will challenge Demin/Pacheco Mendez. The semifinal matches of the singles are scheduled for Saturday, starting at 11. In the afternoon also the doubles finals.