The Italian Tennis and Padel Federation announced Pietrangeli’s death on Monday, without providing a cause of death. The federation noted that Pietrangeli is the only Italian player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Pietrangeli was the first Italian player to win a Grand Slam trophy, triumphing at the French Open in 1959. He defended that title a year later and his record of two Grand Slam titles among Italian players was not broken until Sinner won his second consecutive Australian Open title in 2025, taking his total to three.
Sinner has now won four majors.
“I won $150 for the 1960 title, which covered two months’ rent for my house in Rome,” Pietrangeli told Gazzetta dello Sport in 2020.
Pietrangeli also finished second at Roland Garros in 1961 and 1964, losing both finals to Spanish player Manuel Santana. He won the doubles title in Paris in 1959 with Orlando Sirola.
“In 1964, Santana and I made a bet where the loser would pay for dinner,” Pietrangeli said. “I fulfilled the agreement and ten of us went out that evening, including our wives, and Manolo invited the Spanish footballer Luisito Suárez,” Pietrangeli said. “I spent my entire earnings from the tournament to cover the evening.”
Pietrangeli also reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1960 and the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in 1957.
Davis Cup records In the Davis Cup, Pietrangeli holds the record for most aggregate wins and most singles wins, having played 164 matches for Italy in 66 matches. His singles record was 78-32 and his doubles record was 42-12. He also formed one half of the most successful Davis Cup doubles partnership with Sirola, with the pair winning 34 of their 42 matches together.
As a player, Pietrangeli led Italy to the Davis Cup final twice, losing both times to an Australian team featuring Rod Laver and Roy Emerson.
Pietrangeli finally lifted the Davis Cup trophy as captain in 1976, when he coached Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci and Antonio Zugarelli to the title with a win over Chile, played amid Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
There were calls for Italy not to travel to Chile, but Pietrangeli insisted the Azzurri should go.
“That was really my biggest contribution for that final,” Pietrangeli said. “Without me, Italy would not have traveled to that final and we would not have won.”
Italy did not win the Davis Cup again until Sinner led the Azzurri to the title in 2023 and 2024; and then Matteo Berrettini and Flavio Cobolli led Italy to a third consecutive Davis Cup – and first on home soil – in Bologna last month.
Stadio Pietrangeli After his playing and coaching career ended, Pietrangeli became something of a “godfather” for Italian tennis. He was a front-row fixture at the Foro Italico for the Italian Open, a tournament he won in 1957 and 1961, beating Laver in the latter final.
In 2006, the statue-lined Pallacorda pitch at the Foro Italico – considered one of the most picturesque stadiums on the circuit – was renamed Stadio Pietrangeli. Pietrangeli said he wanted his funeral to take place at the court named after him.
Nicola Chirinsky Pietrangeli was born in Tunis, then a French colony, to an Italian father and a Russian mother.
#Italian #tennis #champion #Pietrangeli #dies #age