Unseeded Italian Roberta Vinci has dramatically finished Serena Williams’ pursuit of an hard calendar-year fantastic bang by using a semi-final boilover along at the People Open in New York. She announced her retirement minutes after she beat her long-time friend Roberta Vinci, with whom she shared a lot of her tennis career, both having been raised in the Puglia region and against whom she played dozens of times as they grew up living just 60 kilometres apart.
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Vinci was tentative, making little headway with her sliced backhand until a Pennetta error brought her level at 4-4.
News of Vinci’s and Pennetta’s wins topped Saturday’s headlines in Italy.
When was the last time you heard about something in sports that made you gasp?
“With this, winning today, my life is ideal”.
She calls herself “Fighter Girl”, but No. 2 seed Simona Halep looked every bit like a 23-year-old caught in unfamiliar New York traffic – in this case, her first US Open semifinal – as a charismatic 33-year-old Italian seized the day Friday. Fognini is already looking forward to walking the hallways inside Ashe during next year’s U.S. Open, where photos of past champions line the walls – and Pennetta’s picture will join them.
Many see this is as a cause for concern regarding the future of the sport, considering there aren’t that many youngsters breaking through in a major way, while others feel that a tour dominated by veterans makes for repetitive storylines and boring scenarios. Until this US Open, Nadal had won 151 Grand Slam matches when he had taken the first two sets.
The front pages of the main Italian newspapers display pictures of Italian Tennis players Falvia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci, in Rome, Saturday, September 12,2015.
After the American’s bid for the first Grand Slam since 1988 ended, first lady Michelle Obama tweeted: “So proud of you, (at)SerenaWilliams”.
Pennetta won by playing solidly and effectively using her best shot, a flat two-handed backhand. “One guy said, ‘I wish it was ’75 (the year of the Los Angeles race riots)”. I think I did everything that I expect.
The sight of a teenager freaking out on a tennis court after winning a grand slam has been a familiar one and it has undoubtedly led thousands of youngsters to pick up a tennis racquet and dare to dream.
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Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who spoke to the champion after the match, was in attendance. “We have so many good things together”.
