After a losing streak of five matches, we take a look at the difficult period for Fabio Fognini in this part of the season.
“The 2018 season has ended for me, it was a good one, maybe the best of my career, with a lot of up and downs, experiences, emotions, positive and negative moments. That’s sport, that’s why I love tennis!”
With these heartfelt and genuine words, the Italian closed last year’s season, which brought him a lot of success and victories. Fognini managed to win three ATP titles (San Paolo and Los Cabos on clay and Bastad on hardcourt) and went very close to a fourth in Chengdu, where he lost to Tomic in the final, in which he had three match points. This great consistency took him to the 13th place in the ATP rankings, equaling his career best position, and the Italian also beat his personal record of matches won in a year (46), reaching 40 victories for the first time since 2013.
After this amazing season, everyone would have expected another great improvement in Fognini’s results in 2019, but this has not happened yet.
The numbers of this year got dramatically worse, as the 31-year-old won only three matches in three months. After the quarterfinals reached in Auckland and the third round of the Australian Open, Fognini has yet to win a match. In Cordoba, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Indian Wells, he always lost the first match he played, with a terrible display.
Even by playing tennis in his crazy and unique way, Fognini has always showed determination and amazing fighting spirit every time he was on court, but this has yet to be seen this year.
The problem – Lack of motivation?
Of course it’s impossible to stay silent in front of this situation, but this is not the article in which you’ll see critics or accusations, which are very useless in these cases. After a very positive moment, it’s normal to have some bad days at the office, as it’s happening to the player in question..
The Fognini we have seen in these last matches is not bad from a technical point of view, he just appears to be less entertaining. That’s why in these cases maybe it’s right to take some time off court, to focus more individually and to recharge the batteries, which are very strong in the Italian, as he has showed several times.
The light at the end of the tunnel
Analyzing the calendar and next tournaments, there is one thing that could make the Italian smile: the end of hard court season and the start of the clay court one. It’s a well known fact that Fognini plays his best tennis on this surface, and that’s why we all should see the other face of the medal, hoping for better results to come.
It will be fundamental not to forget what has happened in the last months, because even defeats are part of the process. But to learn from them is even more fundamental, and the Italian surely has the strength to recover from this dark moment.
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