It was just a few days before Wimbledon that Matteo Berrettini’s team sat him down and said he needed to decide whether to play or not.
Since mid-April, he had played just once competitively and managed to win just three games, perpetually beset as he was by an abdominal problem.
Had it been any other tournament other than Wimbledon, the 2021 runner-up admits he might not have signed up, and it wasn’t until the morning of his match that he felt fit enough to play.
Berrettini hasn’t had it easy in the draw to date having already beaten Alex di Minaur and Alexander Zverev but in the fourth match on Centre Court tonight faces Carlos Alcaraz.
On the three occasions they have faced each other, all have gone the distance, which could yet bring the 11pm curfew into play once more should the matches before them today go long.
It is bizarre to think Berrettini began this year’s Wimbledon just a place above Andy Murray in the world rankings.
And looking back to the week before last, the Italian said: “I wasn’t even sure if I was going to play. I flew here and I said maybe the atmosphere is going to help me a little bit.
“I was really not sure about it. Not because I didn’t want to. In order to play a slam, you have to be ready physically, emotionally, mentally. There are many things. The will is not enough.”
A few days beforehand in the wake of Queen’s from which the two-time champion there withdrew, he decided he wasn’t ready to compete having missed so much tennis in an injury-ravaged two years since that 2021 Wimbledon run.
Covid had denied him a spot in the men’s draw on the eve of the tournament a year ago. This time, he eventually decided he wasn’t going to allow anything to derail him once he found himself in England and on the grass.
He said: “I couldn’t leave this place without trying. That’s what I said to myself. I think this place has something special. I feel a kind of energy I don’t feel anywhere else.”
His run has been to the extent that he joked if offered a place in the last 16 pre-tournament beforehand, “I would have signed with my blood”.
Since losing his opening set of the entire tournament, Berrettini has not dropped one since. His big-serving display against Zverev was such that the German declared the Italian could win Wimbledon come the end of this week.
While the inclement weather earlier last week derailed some, Berrettini argues it has been in his favour, in essence short matches each day not troubling his injury and enabling him to build up his fitness at the same time.
Against Alcaraz looking on the pair’s past history and with the roof likely to allow the match to reach its denouement immaterial of the weather, he may well find his body tested this time.
Alcaraz lost to an Italian at the same fourth-round stage at Wimbledon a year ago – Jannik Sinner – but the Spaniard looks an entirely different player on grass 12 months on. Like Berrettini, he is also a Queen’s winner.
He knows full well what to expect from the other side of the court later today: “Big serve, big shots as well,” the key being to shine with his returns, such a facet of his game at Wimbledon so far this year.
Most players prefer to talk about taking each match at a time, after beating Nicolas Jarry in four sets Alcaraz confessed his sights were set on the final and ideally a meeting with Novak Djokovic in a bid to gain revenge from his French Open semi-final loss.
In his mind, every appearance on Centre Court – this will be his third time there in four days – is building to that moment.
“Every match that I win on Centre Court is better for me to get into this court, this atmosphere,” he said.
He talked of not belonging on that court last year, now he warned Berrettini he felt both comfortable and confident there.
Poring over clips of Roger Federer and Murray have played a role in him better understanding how to move on this surface. On the evidence of the past week, he’s clearly a quick learner.
With Federer retired and Murray already knocked out this year, Alcaraz has very much become the firm fans’ favourite. Before facing Berrettini, he said he planned to repay that faith with another win. As he put it, “With the love from the people…I try to make that happen.”
