(Adnkronos) – Once upon a time, it would have been just barroom jokes. Today, it is the social media catchphrases, and even the press behind the scenes, that link the private lives of champions like Jannick Sinner and Matteo Berrettini to defeats and injuries. In chronological order, first there was the relationship between the Roman tennis player and Melissa Satta that held the stage, with the constant allusion to the coincidence between poor results on the court and a life as a couple under the spotlight. Now it is Sinner’s tonsillitis, which caused him to give up the 2024 Paris Olympics, that is being blamed on the vacation he took with his partner, the Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya. The idea that is gaining traction, post after post, is that tennis is a sport that imposes a monastic life at the highest level, without temptations and without room for normal relationships. A theory that conspiracy theorists like and that is often supported by arguments as improbable as they are imaginative, with sex and the easy life always present like stone guests. The history of tennis itself denies it without appeal when looking at many illustrious precedents. Adriano Panatta and Bjorn Borg come to mind as the first term of comparison, who certainly never lived the court as an alternative to social life. Other times, and another context, is the first objection that can be made. The substantial difference, however, is not in the habits of tennis players, or any other sportsman, but in the exponential multiplication of the weight that summary judgments take on, the trivializations that remained at the bar and that now bounce back until they become plausible interpretations of reality. And it is not only the fault, or responsibility, of the much frequented social drift. Information also plays its part, in the blender of news that easily become conjectures and inferences. The sexual allusion at the bar is ennobled to a more articulated analysis, attributing to a sentimental relationship the distraction from the straight path, the one made of absolute dedication to the playing field. There is not only acquiescence to gossip, there is also the presumption of explaining how the life, sporting and private, of others should work. And the picture gets worse. (By Fabio Insenga) —sportwebinfo@adnkronos.com (Web Info)
