More Than Just Jannik Sinner: Italian Women’s Tennis’ Rise In 2024
While Jannik Sinner has captured the hearts of many Italians this year, he was not the only one who brought Italian tennis back to the top of the international scene.
The WTA Awards earlier this week crowned the Italian pair Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani ‘Doubles Team of the Year’, allowing Italy to finally write its name in the hall of fame of women’s tennis again after almost a decade of poor results.
After the so-called ‘golden era’ between 2010 and 2015, where Italy won two Grand Slams and three Fed Cups, Italian female players struggled to make a name for themselves in the big tournaments.
Only Camila Giorgi briefly made an appearance in the top 30 between 2018 and 2022 and reached two quarter-finals during her career.
Elisabetta Cocciaretto, Lucia Bronzetti and Martina Trevisan all played under the Italian flag in recent years, but none of them managed to achieve the desired results.
Even Jasmine Paolini was not considered one of the best players in the landscape of women’s tennis. That was, until 2024.
Jasmine Paolini, the new leader
At the age of 28, Paolini in just a year, made Italian women’s tennis history by becoming the first female player to reach two different Grand Slam finals.
After a two-set victory against Mirra Andreeva in the semifinals of Roland Garros, she played her first ever Grand Slam final against world number one Iga Swiatek, against whom she lost 2-6 1-6.
Just over a month later, she grabbed her ticket to the Wimbledon finals after beating Donna Vekic in a three-set game that lasted almost three hours, breaking the record of Wimbledon’s longest women’s semifinal.
Despite her loss in the finals against Barbora Krejcikova, Paolini’s result had a big impact on the women’s tennis movement in Italy, attracting more fans towards a sport that was considered to be ‘dying’.
Her outstanding results made her sit in the fourth position of the WTA world ranking in October, and she maintained that place until the end of the season.
Before her, only Francesca Schiavone managed to become number four in the world. Paolini, however, was the first Italian to finish a tennis season in the WTA top five.
Sara Errani, the veteran
If Paolini is the new rising star, Sara Errani is the experienced veteran who still has a few aces up her sleeve.
Errani won a total of 42 trophies between singles, doubles and mixed doubles, and she currently holds the record for the highest number of victories in Italian women’s tennis history.
During her golden era in the early 2010s she reached the finals in Roland Garros in 2012 and the semifinals in the US Open that same year.
Her best results, however, came from the doubles, where she managed to achieve a Career Grand Slam with her partner Roberta Vinci. She was also part of the ‘Dream Team’, along with Vinci, Francesca Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta, that won three Fed Cups.
The arrival of new young players in the circuit and two stops for alleged doping caused Errani to slowly fall behind both in the WTA ranking and in the international tennis scene, but this never stopped her from playing and trying to win the only doubles title missing from the list: an Olympic medal.
Paris 2024: an historic medal
Before Paris, Italy had never won a medal in tennis at the Olympics.
Last summer saw this record being broken twice, by Lorenzo Musetti with a bronze medal in the men’s singles and, just a few days later, by Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini who won the gold medal in the women’s doubles.
After a relatively smooth preliminary phase, Errani and Paolini reached the semifinals at the Olympics by beating a Czech pair 6-3 6-2. This result was the furthest an Italian pair had ever gone in the tournament, marking a historical moment for Italian tennis and more significantly, Italian women’s tennis.
When the gold medal arrived after a hard-fought, three-set game against Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider, a new page in the history book of tennis was written.
Errani completed her doubles Career Golden Slam and is now one of the seven women to have achieved this result.
The Billie Jean King Cup and the new year ahead
To coronate a year of successes, the Italian team led by former player Tatiana Garbin won the Billie Jean King Cup with a strong lineup consisting of Jasmine Paolini, Sara Errani, Lucia Bronzetti, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Martina Trevisan.
In the finals against Slovakia, the doubles game was not disputed since Paolini and Bronzetti won the two singles.
Thanks to that victory, Italy is now first in the teams world ranking for both men and women.
With the amount of results achieved this year, the future of Italian women’s tennis seems to be in good hands. The sport is attracting more and more fans across the country and the world, and Italian broadcasters are now bidding for more tv rights to show all the women’s tournaments and not just the Grand Slams.
