Today Italian tennis is in great shape. Berrettini AND Sinner they played in the ATP Finals last year, Musetti is on the launch pad, Sonego and Fognini get good results. A level five that can also earn the Davis Cup. There was a time, not too long ago, when there were only two top Italian tennis players: Fognini and Seppi, the only blue capable of beating Federer in a Grand Slam round. Andreas Seppi he is about to leave professional tennis, he would like to say goodbye in style but the federation has not helped him, he may have forgotten about his career and denied a wild card for the italian tournaments in october. I knew that maybe he was expecting a tribute, he wanted to emphasize the ugly not received by the federation, revealing everything in one story.
This is a bad page for Italian tennis. Because Seppi deserved a big runway in his farewell to tennis, a sport he honored and ennobled. It was known that he was nearing the end of his career, or as far as he could imagine considering he is 38 years old, but when the official announcement came it was sad as well for many fans. Seppi knew he had a chance to celebrate his career at home by playing one of the two new ATP tournaments, or the Florence or that of Naples – two 250s have entered the circuit for this season.
The South Tyrolean tennis player, who has lived in Colorado for a few years, certainly read a lot of comments on social media in the hours following the announcement. Many wondered why he wasn’t headlining Florence or Naples. And it was he himself who said what had happened. Because Seppe had asked for the joker for one of the fall tournaments, but he couldn’t. The Federation (which has been called the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation since last Sunday) received the request, but rejected it.
Seppi in an Instagram story wrote: “I would have loved to have played in the draw in Florence or Naples say goodbye to tennis, but unfortunately the Italian Tennis Federation didn’t allow it, telling me that giving the Wild Card to someone retiring would be a waste.”
The Federation’s response to Seppi was very bad, as he deserved to be discharged with full honors for what he had done in his career. The Federation got two of the three wild cards available for the 250 tournaments in Florence and Naples and preferred to assign them to younger players (Nardi and Cobolli in Naples). Legitimate decision, because Italy has talented players on the rise who need to play matches in important tournaments. But it would be fair to reward Seppi, who felt wounded with pride by this sentence: “Giving the Wild Card to someone retiring would have been a waste.”
Seppi won 3 ATP titles, played 10 finals on the main circuit and reached the round of 16 several times at the Australian Open, but also at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. The success over Federer in Melbourne in 2015 is certainly the highlight of his career. He represented Italy in the Davis Cup, when those were really dark times (Italy had finished in C, and had been in Serie B for a long time), and at the Olympics he played those in 2012.
His career has not been forgotten by those who live on the circuit, many tennis players who have challenged him and know him well, but also many coaches, have honored him – do – with very affectionate posts on social networks, demonstrating that Seppi has left a mark, and also important in the tennis world.
Source: Fan Page IT
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
