Nicola Pietrangeli, a two-time winner of the French Open, has died at the age of 92, Italy’s tennis federation announced on Monday.
“Italian tennis is mourning an icon. Nicola Pietrangeli, the only Italian inducted into the World Tennis Hall of Fame, has died,” said the FITP.
Born in Tunis in 1933 to an Italian father and Russian mother, Pietrangeli was widely considered the country’s greatest ever tennis player until the emergence of current world number two Jannik Sinner.
He was also one of the best clay-court players of his generation, with three titles in Monte Carlo and his home Italian Open tournament in Rome, where a court is named in his honour.
In total, Pietrangeli won 44 singles titles over his career, including his two triumphs at Roland Garros in 1959 and 1960, and reached the Wimbledon semi-finals in the same year as his second French Open title.
An all-round sportsman, Nicola Pietrangeli played for the football team Lazio until he was 18 years old, but he switched to tennis after the Rome-based club tried to send him away on loan.
Pietrangeli’s first victory at Roland Garros was the first time any Italian player had won a Grand Slam and came after he defeated South African Ian Vermaak in the final.
He also won that year’s doubles tournament, which back then was hugely popular, alongside his compatriot Orlando Sirola, with whom he formed a formidable pairing.
Gifted with an excellent backhand, precise ball control, and impressive stamina, he won his second French Open title in 1960 against Chilean Luis Ayala before being beaten twice in the 1961 and 1964 finals by Spaniard Manuel Santana.
During the majority of his career, tennis was divided between amateurs, who played in the traditional top tournaments and the Davis Cup, and professionals who joined a parallel circuit once they established a reputation as a top player.
Unlike his contemporaries Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, Pietrangeli didn’t turn professional until the beginning of the Open era in 1968, by which time he was in his mid-30s.
After his retirement, Pietrangeli, a fan of the high life, became a media personality, presenting popular sports programme La Domenica Sportiva and appearing in three films.
“If I’d trained harder, I would have won more, but I would have had less fun,” he once said.
Pietrangeli was also a Davis Cup stalwart, playing a record 164 matches for Italy, although he never managed to win it as a player, losing the final in 1960 and 1961.
He racked up those appearances between 1954 and 1972, but he didn’t taste success in the international tournament until 1976, when he captained his country to its first title.
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