The pride of Volandri, captain of Italy in the Davis Cup: "We saw two great players fighting for their country"
The Italian players have heart. Despite the absences of Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti, Filippo Volandri's team overcame Austria in the quarterfinals, then Belgium in the semifinals. Matteo Berrettini defeated Raphaël Collignon (6-3, 6-4), while Flavio Cobolli dominated Zizou Bergs after a suspenseful match (6-3, 6-7, 7-6) following 3 hours of battle. After saving seven match points, he finally won 17 points to 15 in the third-set tiebreak. Captain Volandri is in any case very proud of his players.
"We saw two great players fighting for their country. I told Flavio (Cobolli) that he wanted to win more than his opponent. I am really proud of Flavio, of Matteo (Berrettini) and of the whole team. The crowd pushed us beyond our limits. Now it's time to recover. Germany or Spain are two different teams. Both teams struggled in the quarterfinals. It's difficult for everyone. The rankings in the Davis Cup don't matter.
I want to focus only on my team. We are strong, we form a great group and we motivate each other. We respect both teams, but we are strong. We don't want to win the Davis Cup for the third consecutive time: we want to win the Davis Cup in 2025.
We have a final to play and we must try to prepare for it as best as possible. I spoke little about tactics to Flavio during his match, I simply told him to seize the opportunities that presented themselves. If you wait for your opponent to make a mistake, you have something to blame yourself for. In the end, he was very good," assured Volandri in a press conference according to comments collected by Tennis World Italia.
