ROME — Nicola Pietrangeli, the Italian tennis champion of the 1950s and 1960s whose record was only recently broken by Jannik Sinner, and who remains the winningest player in Davis Cup history, has died. He was 92 years old.
The Italian Tennis and Padel Federation announced Pietrangeli’s death on Monday, without giving a cause of death. The federation noted that Pietrangeli is the only Italian player to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Pietrangeli won the 1959 French Open, becoming the first Italian player to win a Grand Slam trophy. He defended that title a year later, and the record of two Grand Slam singles titles by an Italian player would not be broken until 2025, when Sinner won his second consecutive Australian Open title, increasing his total to three.
This was Sinner’s fourth major victory.
“I won $150 for the 1960 title, which is the equivalent of two months’ rent for my house in Rome,” Pietrangeli told Gazzetta dello Sport in 2020.
Pietrangeli was also runner-up at Roland Garros in 1961 and 1964, but lost in both finals to Spanish player Manuel Santana. He won the doubles title in Paris in 1959 with Orlando Sirola.
“In 1964, Santana and I made a bet that the loser would pay for dinner,” Pietrangeli said. “I respected the agreement and 10 of us went out that night, including my wife, and Manolo invited (Spanish soccer player) Luisito Suarez,” Pietrangeli said. “I spent all the money I earned from the tournament covering that night.”
Pietrangeli also reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 1960 and the quarter-finals of the 1957 Australian Open.
Davis Cup Records In the Davis Cup, Pietrangeli played in 164 of 66 games for Italy and holds the records for most career wins and most singles wins. His singles record was 78 wins and 32 losses, and his doubles record was 42 wins and 12 losses. He also formed one half of Davis Cup’s most successful doubles partnership with Sirola, with the pair winning 34 of 42 matches together.
As a player, Pietrangeli led Italy to two Davis Cup finals, but both times they lost away to an Australian team featuring Rod Laver and Roy Emerson.
In 1976, Pietrangeli finally lifted the Davis Cup trophy as captain, coaching Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazutti, Paolo Bertolucci and Antonio Zugarelli to the title with a victory over Chile under Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
Although there were calls for Italy to refrain from traveling to Chile, Pietrangeli strongly urged the Azzurri to travel to Chile.
“That was my biggest contribution in the final,” Pietrangeli said. “If it wasn’t for me, Italy wouldn’t have made it to the final and we wouldn’t have won the championship.”
Italy would not win the Davis Cup again until Sinner led the Azzurri to the title in 2023 and 2024. And in Bologna last month, Matteo Berrettini and Flavio Cobolli led Italy to their third straight Davis Cup title and first on home soil.
Stadio Pietrangeli After his playing and coaching career, Pietrangeli became something of a “godfather” of Italian tennis. He was a regular on the front row at the Foro Italico Italian Open, which he won in 1957 and 1961, defeating Laver in the late final.
In 2006, the Paracorda Court, lined with statues of the Foro Italico, considered one of the most beautiful stadiums on the circuit, was renamed Stadio Pietrangeli. Pietrangeli said he would like his funeral to be held in a court named after him.
Nicola Chirinski Pietrangeli was born in Tunis, then a French colony, to an Italian father and a Russian mother.
