{"id":106007,"date":"2026-06-02T08:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=106007"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:40:12","slug":"matteo-berrettini-redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/06\/02\/matteo-berrettini-redemption\/","title":{"rendered":"Matteo Berrettini: A Redemption That No One Saw Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Matteo Berrettini redemption story has a new chapter, and it is a good one. Berrettini, the Italian world #105, beat Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cer\u00fandolo 6-3 7-6 7-6 on Court Suzanne-Lenglen on Monday afternoon to reach the quarterfinals of Roland Garros for the first time since his 2021 run, five years since he had last hit his way into the second week in Paris, and four years since his last Grand Slam quarterfinal at any major. He’s had quite a bit of luck along the way (a pleasant change for him) but if he wins his quarterfinal, he will be in a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time since 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody truly saw this coming. Not like this. Yes, there was the Monte Carlo match against Daniil Medvedev in April in which Berrettini thrashed the then-world #10 6-0 6-0 in just 49 minutes, becoming only the fifth player in ATP history to deliver a double bagel to a top-ten opponent. That was extraordinary. But extraordinary performances are one thing. A sustained deep run at Roland Garros, winning four consecutive matches against quality opposition without losing a set, is something else entirely. Even after Monte Carlo it felt like a moment rather than a return. Paris is beginning to look like a return.<\/span><\/p>\n

Matteo Berrettini Enjoying Surprising Revival<\/h2>\n

The Berrettini Redemption<\/b><\/h3>\n

To understand what the Berrettini redemption actually means, you have to understand what he went through to get here. For a player who reached the Wimbledon final in 2021, the years that followed were defined almost entirely by his body’s refusal to cooperate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The litany of injuries was long and unforgiving: an abdominal strain that forced him to pull out of the 2021 ATP Finals in front of a home crowd in Turin; a wrist injury in early 2022 that required surgery, causing him to miss the entire clay-court season; a spell of COVID-19 that stopped him from participating at Wimbledon 2022, where he was viewed as a prime contender; persistent abdominal issues throughout late 2022 and into 2023; and an ankle injury suffered at the 2023 US Open, which caused yet another prolonged layoff.<\/span><\/p>\n

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He concluded the 2023 season with just 14 wins and 12 losses, dropped out of the ATP top 50, and was forced to withdraw from Roland Garros that year due to injury. He missed the tournament again the following year. He dropped in 2024 to 154th in the world and was forced onto the Challenger Tour. The man who had been world #6, who had won the Queen’s Club title and reached a Grand Slam final, was grinding through 250-level events trying to rebuild something that kept getting knocked down.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also parted ways with his longtime coach Vincenzo Santopadre, after thirteen years together and hired a new coach.The Berrettini redemption, when it eventually came, was going to be built differently.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April 2024, he won a title in Marrakech having only returned from a six-month ankle injury layoff in March, propelling him back into the top 100. Then in the summer, he won back-to-back titles in Gstaad and Kitzb\u00fchel, dropping just two sets across both tournaments. The grass of 2024 started to look like the old Berrettini.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And now he is in a Grand Slam quarterfinal, having beaten Marton Fucsovics, Arthur Rinderknech and Francisco Comesana before dismantling the man who eliminated Jannik Sinner<\/a>. Berrettini redemption is not too strong a phrase for what is unfolding on the Paris clay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can He Win It?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The honest answer is: not very likely, but not impossible, and in a draw this chaotic, anything can happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

His quarterfinal opponent will be either Frances Tiafoe or Matteo Arnaldi, neither of whom is an insurmountable obstacle for a player serving at the level Berrettini has shown this fortnight. He hit 41 aces in his first three matches, averaging nearly 14 per match, and won 82% of points behind his first serve. When the serve is firing like that, and the forehand is landing as cleanly as it has been, he can trouble anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

The problem is that to win Roland Garros<\/a> from this position he would need to win three more best-of-five matches against increasingly dangerous opponents. A potential semifinal against Zverev, the clear favourite and a player with the best clay record in the tournament, would be an enormous ask. The last time Berrettini reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal was four years ago. Sustaining that level across another week, on a surface that punishes any physical vulnerability, against the players that remain in this draw, would be a remarkable achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n

But remarkable achievements have been the theme of this tournament. Sinner gone in the second round. Novak Djokovic was beaten by a teenager. In a week that has already broken almost every expectation it set up, Berrettini reaching the semifinals would be just another page in the same strange, brilliant story.<\/span><\/p>\n

Verdict<\/span><\/h3>\n

The best thing about this week, regardless of what happens next, is simply that Berrettini is playing well again. He is healthy. He is competing at the highest level. And Wimbledon is eight weeks away. It is the stage where he has always been at his absolute best, the tournament where he reached the final in 2021 and where a fit, confident version of him is genuinely dangerous. After everything he has been through, seeing him compete like this at the biggest events is worth celebrating on its own terms.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he is not done in Paris yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main photo credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Matteo Berrettini redemption story has a new chapter, and it is a good one. Berrettini, the Italian world #105, beat Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cer\u00fandolo 6-3 7-6 7-6 on Court Suzanne-Lenglen on Monday afternoon to reach the quarterfinals of Roland Garros for the first time since his 2021 run, five years since he had last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":106053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,5],"tags":[43702,498,1694,896],"class_list":["post-106007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-french-open","tag-2026-french-open","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-matteo-berrettini","tag-roland-garros"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106054,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106007\/revisions\/106054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}