ROME - Italy won the Davis Cup in 1976 and had to wait 47 years to win it a second time in 2023. That victory signaled the ascendancy of Jannik Sinner who went on to dominate the tennis tour in 2024, taking the Australian Open title and then the US Open. Sinner’s presence gave all of Italy good reason to expect a second consecutive Davis Cup title in 2024. In the absence of Germany’s Alexander Zverev, only Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz figured to have the firepower to contend with Sinner. But in a sentimental decision, Spain saddled itself with the disadvantage of choosing the aging and injured Rafa Nadal to play singles. Rafa lost and Spain flubbed the doubles, allowing the Netherlands to advance and Sinner to avoid his greatest hurdle. 

 Italy did face a spot of bother in the quarterfinals when Argentinean Francisco Cerundolo upset Lorenzo Musetti. Sinner won his singles match easily against the Argentines, but then had to team up with Matteo Berrettini to take the deciding doubles match.

 Due to injury and a long lay-off, Berrettini wasn’t expected to play a significant role in this year’s Davis Cup, but impressed by his performance in doubles, Italian coach Filippo Volandri chose Berrettini to play singles in the next round, the semi-finals against Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia. Because the court in Malaga, Spain, was brutally fast, the match devolved into a display of power tennis. Neither Kokkinakis nor Berrettini is known for his nimbleness of foot, but in this case neither man needed to be. The point was simply to knock the cover off the ball, which Berrettini did often enough to win 7-5 in the third set. After that, Italian fans exhaled and enjoyed watching Sinner make short work of Alex de Minaur. With the Azzurri up 2-0, no doubles match was played. 

 In the other semi-final, Netherlands once again punched above its weight. It got an important win from Botic van de Zandschulp, who despite his modest rank of #80 won his singles match against Daniel Altmaier. Tallon Griekspoor dispatched Jan-Lennard Struff, allowing the unheralded Dutch to advance over Germany to the Davis Cup final. 

 There the Azzurri awaited them with what must have been burgeoning confidence. Berrettini, who seemed to be playing himself into shape with every match, exposed the weaknesses of van de Zandschulp, leaving Jannik Sinner to live up to his world #1 ranking and take down Griekspoor in straight sets. Though Griekspoor put up a struggle in the first set before going down 7-6, he ran out of ideas and energy in the second set 6-2.

 For buoyant Italian fans, it may seem possible, even probable, that the Azzurri will win again next year. And why stop there? At the age of 23, Sinner figures to keep getting better, and Berrettini appears to be on track to recover his top ten ranking. The only conceivable fly in the ointment is one that no one mentioned during the Davis Cup. Sinner is still under investigation for twice testing positive for clostebol, an anabolic steroid. This case has been dragging on since last March, and for most fans it seems to be a dead letter. But on Nov. 23, 2024, the day of this year’s Davis Cup semi-finals, an article entitled “Unoriginal Sinner” appeared in the US in Airmail news. In addition to dredging up again the details of the case against Sinner, it examined other cases of clostebol’s abuse by Italian tennis players and asked a salient question. “If he (Sinner) was indeed innocent, why was the ITIA (International Tennis Integrity Agency) still forcing him to forfeit the $325,000 in prize money and the 400 ranking points he had won during the month of his infraction? The suggestion is that Sinner may be made an example to prove that tennis authorities administer justice fairly for rich champions as well as poor obscure players. A verdict isn’t expected until 2025, by which time Sinner may well be on his way to defending his Australian Open title.

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