For a player who not so long ago was consistently making the second week at the Grand Slams, including a stretch of five consecutive major quarterfinal appearances, limiting expectations and venturing into the unknown can feel like alien concepts.
Just two years ago, Matteo Berrettini was playing in a Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic. The Italian power hitter was a constant fixture in the top 10 from October 2019 until June 2022.
Last year, returning from a right-hand injury that forced him out of the 2022 clay swing, Berrettini enjoyed a stunning return to action, putting together a nine-match winning streak on grass ahead of the Championships by winning back-to-back titles in Stuttgart and Queens only to then withdraw from Wimbledon due to a bout of COVID-19.
This year, Berrettini’s fortunes took another hit when he sustained an oblique muscle injury in Monte Carlo and once again had to skip the clay season. He played his first match in two months on grass in Stuttgart but walked off court in tears following a 6-1, 6-2 opening defeat to his good friend and fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego.
“Despite feeling match fit and ready. I clearly was not,” admitted the 27-year-old later in an Instagram post.
After being seeded in his last 13 majors, Berrettini arrives at Wimbledon short on match play — he has played a total of 14 matches in 2023 — low on confidence, ranked outside the top 30 for the first time in four years, and unseeded at a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2019 Australian Open.
It is a lot to wrap one’s head around.
“I’ve felt better in my career. Obviously I don’t have any matches, in football they say ‘in my legs.’ But I think the will is bigger than that,” Berrettini told a small group of reporters at the All England Club on Sunday, the eve of Wimbledon 2023.
“I don’t know what to expect actually. I know I’ve been working really hard, not just in the last two weeks, but before that, before coming back and starting to play on grass.
“I know it’s not been the perfect preparation for a Slam and I don’t have like crazy expectations about that. And I have to deal with that.
“I’ve always been a player in the last three years that coming into a Slam, I always thought about how can I reach the final? How can I have a long run? Right now it changed a little bit, not because I don’t believe in my tennis, but because it’s important (to) build up your body and your physical state I would say.”
Berrettini gave a little chuckle when asked if he was ready for best-of-five tennis. His first test at Wimbledon comes on Tuesday and it is a rematch with none other than the man who just handed him a hefty defeat: Sonego.
All the injury setbacks have understandably taken a toll on Berrettini mentally and while he knows it is all part of being a professional athlete, he concedes that staying on the sidelines in an unrelenting sport like tennis is tough to accept.
“It’s, I think, a fight with yourself as well. In a way I feel everything that is happening is part of a process, it’s part of life; everybody has ups and downs,” he said.
“And you have to deal with that. But at the same time this is a sport that makes you feel like you’re in a rush all the time. You have to come back, you’re losing points, you’re losing the ranking, you don’t really have time to say, ‘Okay now I’m going to be in the best shape possible and I’m going to come back.’
“Because I didn’t want to miss (the) grass season as well; I didn’t want to miss clay season in the first place. So it’s always kind of you’re running all the time but at the same time you have to be wise. And obviously the pressure from outside and the pressure from inside, so it’s different, it’s something that you, I would say, every day you’re learning a little bit more.”
Like any elite athlete, the former world No. 6 — now down to 38 in the rankings — places a significant amount of pressure on himself. It is what makes them strive for excellence, and what makes them often achieve it.
But external pressure is a different beast. It can come from anywhere and everywhere, the source sometimes surprising, and other times all too predictable.
“Obviously I feel the pressure. Obviously I feel that I come here and I’m not seeded in a Slam, which is different. But at the same time it’s me, it’s what I’m doing and every day I’m working really hard to get back there,” explained Berrettini.
“Every day I wake up in the morning I’m like, ‘Okay this is what’s happening right now, we just fight through this, and I give my best.’ So that’s what’s really important for me.”
Asked to expand on where he feels that external pressure is coming from, Berrettini said: “From everywhere. When I came here for the first time in 2018, probably there was one journalist here (in the press conference).
“Right now for example I completely shut down my social media, I don’t read anything about it. I’m kind of living in a bubble because my brain never stops working. I’m like that. So even if it’s something that doesn’t really get me, I know in the back of my mind something is going to pop. So it’s different.
“For example, four years ago, three years ago nobody was stopping me in the street in London and saying, ‘Oh, this year you’re going to win Wimbledon.’ This is something that is happening right now.
“So everything changed and you have to deal with that. Sometimes you can deal with it in a way, sometimes in another way. But that’s where the pressure is coming from.
“Which is nice, because it means that I did something great. But at the same time sometimes, especially when maybe you’re not feeling great, the confidence is not really up there, you have to deal with this and it’s a little bit tougher.”
