Nicola Pietrangeli, the Italian tennis legend who won two French Open titles, has died aged 92. Pietrangeli was the first Italian to win a Grand Slam singles title, and transcended the sport with his charm and elegance on and off the court.
The Italian Tennis Federation (FITP) issued a statement Monday: “Italian tennis mourns its icon. Nicola Pietrangeli, the only Italian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, has died at the age of 92.”
FITP president Angelo Binaghi wrote in a tribute that Pietrangeli “wasn’t just a champion: he was the first to teach us what it meant to truly win, on and off the court. He was the starting point for everything our tennis has become. With him, we learned that we too could compete with the world, that dreaming big was no longer a gamble.”
The Italian Open, hosted at the Foro Italico in Rome where a legendary sunken court is named for Pietrangeli, wrote in a statement on X: “His legacy will forever live on in the history of our sport, in the memory of our tournament, and in the stadium that proudly bears his name.”
As well as his two French Open titles in 1959 and 1960, Pietrangeli made the singles final in Paris two more times. He was also a doubles and mixed doubles champion there, and he also won the Italian Open — then the Italian Tennis Championship — twice.
Pietrangeli, who was born Sept. 11, 1933 in Tunis, was 25 when he won the first of those titles. His father Giulio, an Italian amateur tennis player, had met and married Anna de Yourgaince, a refugee of Russian heritage. Later expelled from Tunisia after his father had been interned as part of the the allied occupation during World War II (during which time, Nicola hit balls on a tennis court inside the prison camp), the family moved to Rome.
Pietrangeli said last year that until his later teens he was a better footballer than tennis player, and he was part of the youth setup at Italian giants Lazio. The club wrote on X on Monday that: “We remember Nicola Pietrangeli, legend of Italian tennis and passionate fan of our Lazio. A champion who elevated (Italian tennis) and who always carried Lazio in his heart. In 1974, he trained with the team that would go on to win the Scudetto (Italian league title), sharing passion, spirit, and colors.”
Pietrangeli’s decision to choose tennis turned out to be a very good one, and as well as the individual honors he won, he was also a Davis Cup stalwart for his country.
Pietrangeli represented Italy in the competition between 1954 and 1972, playing in 164 Davis Cup rubbers and winning 120, both of which are all-time records at the event. He was twice a runner-up, in 1960 and 1961, when Italy on both occasions lost away to an Australia team featuring legends like Neale Fraser, Roy Emerson and Rod Laver. He also represented his country at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.
In 2024, following Italy’s second consecutive Davis Cup victory, Pietrangeli said of Jannik Sinner on Rai podcast Un Giorno da Pecora that he was “on the right path to break all my records.” But, he added, “one remains impossible to beat: my 164 Davis Cup matches.”
Nicola Pietrangeli at the Italian Tennis Championship in 1965. (Giorgio Lotti / Getty Images)
After retiring as a player, Pietrangeli became Italy’s Davis Cup team captain and guided the country to its first Davis Cup title in 1976. He was ousted two years later after clashing with Adriano Panatta, Italy’s best player of the time, but his status within the sport was unaffected.
Pietrangeli was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1986. “Pietrangeli had classic strokes, a conventional game plan, and an economy of effort that made him a supreme clay court player,” the Hall of Fame said at the time. The court at the Foro Italico in Rome was named after Pietrangeli on his 73rd birthday.
It’s rare for a player to have a court named after them while still alive, but another who has achieved the accolade, Rafael Nadal, singled Pietrangeli out when talking about French Open legends who had preceded him. “It was truly a completely different world — much less professional,” Nadal, a 14-time Roland Garros champion said in 2024 of that bygone era. “Yet it produced great champions like Pietrangeli, who helped our sport grow and improve in every way, both on and off the court.”
Playing primarily before the Open Era, when tennis turned professional, Pietrangeli did not dispute that his approach to the sport was very different from the unstinting dedication we see from the champions of today.
“I often hear people say, ‘If you had trained more, you would have won more.’ That’s true, but I would have had much less fun,” Pietrangeli said during the 2024 presentation of the documentary “Nicola vs. Pietrangeli,” as quoted by Corriere della Sera. Pietrangeli’s movie-star looks and enjoyment of the high life saw him mingling with stars like Marcello Mastroianni, Brigitte Bardot, and Claudia Cardinale.
Which isn’t to say he couldn’t mix steel with the silk of his game, particularly a masterful single-handed backhand. Pietrangeli famously won the second of his French Open titles despite his socks being soaked red with blood during the final against Chile’s Luis Ayala, who relentlessly hit drop shots and lobs to test his opponent’s fitness and durability across five grueling sets.
But as Binaghi said in his tribute, Pietrangeli’s legacy goes far beyond his achievements on the court: “We will miss his voice, we will miss his smile, his ability to always say what he thought, without fear or filters.
“Today we say goodbye to a monument to our sport, but also to a true friend.
“One of those who can tell you things to your face, who can make you angry and then laugh a second later. And that, in today’s world, is worth more than a thousand trophies.”
