Matteo Berrettini is working very hard to recover his best sensations. The times when the Italian ace approached the Top 5 of the ATP ranking and reached the final at Wimbledon (in 2021) are quite far away, but the ace from Rome has found the right motivation and injuries have left him alone for the moment.
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Matteo's body has always been very fragile and physical problems have conditioned most of his career, preventing him from playing as he would have liked and forcing him to miss several tournaments. The last two seasons have been particularly tough for the 2021 Wimbledon finalist, who had strayed far from the prestigious positions of the ATP rankings and entered a negative spiral.
Berrettini had already shown some signs of rebirth in the 2024 season, in which he had won three titles and had been very important for the Italian team's second victory in a row at the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga (helped by world number 1 Jannik Sinner).
His early performances in 2025 had not been particularly brilliant, but the momentum changed in Doha where Matteo defeated 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic in the first round.
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The Italian star played really well in Qatar last week and his run was only interrupted in the quarterfinals against Jack Draper.
Berrettini complains
Berrettini confirmed these positive feelings also in Dubai this week, where he reached the quarterfinals again losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third set after a spectacular battle.
During his latest press conference in Dubai, the former world number 6 confessed that the constant changing of balls is becoming a problem on the ATP tour: I feel like the balls are getting slower and slower all the time, said Berrettini. But at the same time whats most important for us, I think, is consistency.
We have to try with the same ball, at least on the same surface. We play on clay, we play with the same ball and the quality of the ball is really important, so for our injuries, and I know a lot about that, its really important.
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I personally like a lot the Dunlop balls, I think theyre the best. But again, everybody has different opinions.
