Incredible
Sep. 18th, 2006 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbItaly has occasionally produced some very good tennis players, but since the early seventies there seemed to be nobody coming through worth a damn. In the last few years, however, the female half of the sport has been doing quite well - but never enough for anyone to expect what just happened. The Italian women's team has just won the Federation Cup - supposedly the female version of the Davis Cup - by beating the Belgians. Get it? The Belgians. As in Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne.
EDIT: according to reports, both Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne had to retire due to injuries, but this only proves that the Italian team was fitter. Let alone that, on the way up, they knocked out a French team led by Amelie Mauresmo, the super-strong current World no.1. An astonishing performance however you look at it. And even more surprising is that three out of the four Italian players come from south of Rome - not an area that used to produce a lot of female stars. And there is another record to be added: the manager Corrado Barazzutti was part of the male team that won the Davis Cup in 1976. He is apparently only the second person to win a Davis or Fed Cup both as a player and as a manager, following on the Frenchman Guy Forget.
EDIT: according to reports, both Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne had to retire due to injuries, but this only proves that the Italian team was fitter. Let alone that, on the way up, they knocked out a French team led by Amelie Mauresmo, the super-strong current World no.1. An astonishing performance however you look at it. And even more surprising is that three out of the four Italian players come from south of Rome - not an area that used to produce a lot of female stars. And there is another record to be added: the manager Corrado Barazzutti was part of the male team that won the Davis Cup in 1976. He is apparently only the second person to win a Davis or Fed Cup both as a player and as a manager, following on the Frenchman Guy Forget.
