Italian tennis great Nicola Pietrangeli has died at the age of 92, sources said on Monday.
Pietrangeli was the first Italian to win a grand slam tournament, winning the men's French Open singles title twice, in 1959 and 1960, and he was also runner-up at Roland Garros in 1961 and 1964.
He was the driving force of the Italian teams that reached the Davis Cup finals in 1960 and 1961.
After retiring he was the captain of the team that won Italy's first Davis Cup title in 1976, led by Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti and Paolo Bertolucci.
Pietrangeli was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1986.
Tributes were led by Premier Giorgia Meloni, Pietrangeli's old team, and other sports stars, even from outside Italy.
Meloni said "Nicola Pietrangeli was a symbol of Italian tennis".
Panatta said "I have lost a friend, we took digs at each other but it was just for fun".
"He was our first tennis hero," said Bertolucci.
Italian Tennis Federation chief Angelo Binaghi said "he was the first to teach us what winning means; he was much more than the Davis Cup victory".
Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said "he was a revolutionary who wrote tennis history".
Spanish great Rafa Nadal said "he was a world tennis great".
French sports daily L'Équipe said "he made tennis popular in Italy, when it was seen as a discipline reserved for the elite".
Pietrangeli will forever remainthe first Italian to win a Grand Slam title, in Paris in 1959, duplicating that success the following year.
And he was the captain of the 1976 team that returned from Chile with the Davis Cup, also a first.
Nicola Pietrangeli has passed away at 92, and with him a historic chapter in tennis history has come to a close.
His premature graying hair, his eyes as clear blue as his class, his sly smile, his reputation as a tombeur de femme.
It's a timeless image of Nicola, a sort of Dorian Gray of Italian sport.
Only he and Gianni Clerici have entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Before leaving us, he had time to witness Jannik Sinner, his most worthy heir, in action, leading a group of young tennis players.
And to direct a few jabs at the South Tyrolean phenom, as on the occasion of his decision to opt out of the recent Davis Cup three-peat after leading the Azzurri to victory in 2023 and 2024.
On the threshold of his 80th birthday, Pietrangeli expressed the wish, born of his proverbial self-irony, that his ashes be scattered on the red clay of the court dedicated to him in life, the central court of the Foro Italico.
"There's a parking lot, if it rains we'll take shelter in the underpass that leads to the other courts and the funeral will be postponed until the next day.
I don't want to disturb anyone," he joked.
And, at least in part, his wish will be granted: the final farewell will take place on that court inside the Foro Italico.
The chapel of rest will open on Wednesday, December 3, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
The funeral will be held that same day, at 3:00 p.m., in the Church of Santa Maria della Gran Madre di Dio at the Ponte Milvio Bridge.
In July, he had to deal with the heartbreaking death of his son Giorgio, who died of an incurable disease.
Pietrangeli received the news while he was hospitalized at the Gemelli hospital in Rome for tests.
"I'm sick. I'm lucid, but I feel tired and weak. You should never outlive your children," he said.
"I try to push away the thought of Giorgio, but it always comes back to me." Clay was his territory, where he unleashed a soft tennis enhanced by a beautiful backhand and volleys.
It was the sign of class in a sport that hadn't yet invented the two-handed shot or physicality, and that was dressed only in white.
Pietrangeli, however, boasted great athleticism even then, and those who compiled international rankings before the Open era credited him with third place in the world for three years, between '59 and '61.
He played fifty matches at the Foro, but his world record is his number of Davis Cup matches: 164, with 78 singles wins and 42 doubles wins (with Orlando Sirola he was for years one of the now legendary pairings).
His fame, more than for his two Italian Open victories (in 1957 and 1961), is linked to his two successes at Roland Garros.
His second victory in Paris, along with his Davis Cup victory in 1976, "were the two unforgettable moments of my life." In Paris, he reached the final twice more, in 1961 and 1964, and in Rome again in 1958 and 1966.
Even on the grass at Wimbledon, his results were, until the arrival of Sinner, the best among Italian players: 18 appearances, with one semifinal in 1960, when he was defeated by Rod Laver.
He reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in 1957.
He was the Italian champion consecutively from 1955 to 1960.
Ten years later, at the Italian Championships in Bologna, his defeat to Panatta had been a turning point.
And it was precisely with Adriano that he had a love-hate relationship, marked by arguments and reconciliations.
In his private life, he had four great loves. From his wife Susanna Artero, mother of his three children, whom he met at 21, to Licia Colò.
A mature relationship, between 1987 and 1994. She was 25, he was 54.
"I thought it would be the definitive relationship," he confessed when the relationship was over.
Colò said Monday that "Nicola was a great, great love of mine, and he always remained a young lad in spirit".
Since then, he had carved out a role for himself as the founding father of Italian tennis.
It was all a nice record for Nicola Chirinsky Pietrangeli, born in Tunis in 1933 to an Italian father and a Russian refugee mother.
Having arrived in the Italian capital in his early teens, the kids called him "Er Francia" because he spoke French, but he then chose to remain Roman and Italian, building his own legend that led him to act with Virna Lisi and Peter Ustinov, and to act as the first host of the groundbreaking Italian sports programme, La Domenica Sportiva.
"I have no remorse, but regrets, yes," was his motto.
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