WTI Magazine #53    2015 February, 6
Author : Simone Callisto Manca      Translation by:

For many years Italian tennis in the singles tournaments has not been achieving any outstanding results: however, when it is about partnering up, either in double or in the national team, our tennis players transform and conquer the most prestigious tournaments.

After the success of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in Wimbledon 2014 – which came after four victories in eight years in the Federations Cup - on January 31st it was the turn of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, who won the first Grand Slam of the season: the Australian Open.

The success of Bolelli and Fognini comes 56 years after the last victory of an Italian double in a Grand Slam: in 1959 Paolo Pietrangeli and Orlando Sirola brought home the tournament in Paris, the red clay tournament par excellence.
They were not the favorites in Melbourne: Fabio Fognini is currently number 18 in the world in the ATP Doubles rankings and Simone Bolelli is number 27. But as outsiders, they arrived to the final gaining confidence game after game, and then won 6-4 , 6-4 against the French Double Herbert and Mahut, respectively number 17 and number 30.

For our two players this is the first Slam won in career: Fognini had so far won just three ATP titles, while for Simone Bolelli this is his first-ever triumph. Fognini has been often on the pages of many newspapers in 2014, not for sporting reasons, but for his affair with the star of the Italian female tennis, Flavia Pennetta.

From the actual success, we now move to the success we hope for: the new season of Ferrari has officially started, with the official presentation of the SF15-T and the tests that took place in the first week of February in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

It will not be easy for Ferrari to compete with the power of Mercedes, which in 2014 led Lewis Hamilton to win the title, and with the desire for redemption of McLaren who has hired the former Ferrari pilot, Fernando Alonso; not forgetting Red Bull, the dominatrix of the years 2010-2013, which presents the great hope Daniel Ricciardo. Sebastian Vettel, the four-time world champion with Red Bull, is the new Ferrari pilot: the German champion hopes to revive the glory of Michael Schumacher with the Red from Maranello.

Ferrari news this year are not only from sport: the beginning of the new Formula 1 championship, on March 15 in Melbourne, Australia, will see a new governance for the "cavallino": a new team manager, Maurizio Arrivabene, and a new President, Sergio Marchionne. The goal is to rescue Ferrari after a few years of bad luck, and also to give the brand Ferrari a more "American"projection: in fact, the Red is part of FCA, the company formed in 2014 from the merger between Fiat and Chrysler.

Finally, we celebrate Italy in sport also through the recent Superbowl won by the New England Patriots over the Seattle Seahawks: one of the touchdown of the Patriots was scored by Danny Amendola, wide receiver of the Boston team, who has Italian heritage from his father's family. Good Job, Danny!