Panatta hopes Sinner can overcome 50 years of history at Roland Garros

ROME: Adriano Panatta was the last Italian man to win Roland Garros, now exactly 50 years later the former world number four could have the honour of placing the Coupe des Mousquetaires in a compatriot’s hands.

Jannik Sinner arrives in the French capital on a 29-match win streak and with victory earlier in May at the Italian Open he sealed his sixth successive Masters title but also became the first local man since Panatta in 1976 to win at the Foro Italico.

Now nothing would please Panatta more than the 24-year-old equalling his historic clay-court double, and him “no longer having to hear people tell me, ‘It’s been 50 years since we last won in Rome and Roland Garros’”.

Speaking to AFP at the Italian Open, Panatta, who will present the trophy to the winner of the men’s final on June 7 in Paris, was confident Sinner could complete his career Grand Slam at Roland Garros, especially with the injury-enforced absence of double reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz.

“There’s an Italian who could really win both tournaments within the space of a few days,” he said.

“(Sinner) is the epitome of the current generation. He is a true champion, a ‘fuoriclasse’ as we say in Italy — a player in a class of his own.”

Sinner will open his bid to win a first Roland Garros title on Tuesday against French wild card Clement Tabur.

“Thankfully, there wasn’t a Sinner in my day!” the one-time major winner quipped of the devastatingly efficient top seed.

While Panatta predicts Sinner will break many records –- including Novak Djokovic’s 24 Grand Slam titles — the 75-year-old makes no secret of the fact that he “doesn’t recognise himself in modern tennis”.

“Because the ball moves so much faster, today’s players have less time to think, solutions are harder to find. You have to play and hit hard, it’s a completely different game. When we played tennis, it was a more thoughtful, more tactical game.”

A sort of melancholy

Looking back on his golden year of 1976, Panatta remembered how close he came to exiting both the Italian Open and Roland Garros in the first round.

“Back then, Roland Garros took place straight after Rome,” he said.

“I arrived in Paris on Monday and played on Tuesday, and I had to save a match point in the first round against the Czechoslovakian Pavel Hut’ka. I dived at the net and hit a winning backhand volley.

“It’s funny,” he added. “In Rome, in the first round, I saved 11 match points, but not by diving every time!”

Panatta revealed his two principal memories of winning the final in Paris were that of feeling exhaustion and fleeting joy.

“I was really tired; it was very, very hot. 40C,” he recounted. As for the elation of triumph, it “lasted 15 seconds, and after that, there was a sort of melancholy”.

However, Panatta recalled fondly his earlier success in that edition of Roland Garros against the six-time French Open champion Bjorn Borg — the Italian was the only player to ever beat the Swede on the red dirt in Paris with his quarter-final win in 1976, as well as a victory three years prior in the fourth round.

“He’d played against the Frenchman Francois Jauffret in the previous round,” Panatta said.

“I hated playing against Francois. I went to Saint-Germain-des-Pres, to the Cafe des Arts, and watched the whole match on TV. I was hoping Borg would win because I wanted to play against him.

“Bjorn didn’t like playing against me. The key to beating him? You couldn’t play the way he played. Every point had to be different, with plenty of variation.”

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