Rafael Nadal has the strongest mentality in the world,says Wimbledon winner
It's five years and a half that Gianluigi Quinzi wrote an important chapter for the history of Italian tennis, winning the Wimbledon junior title defeating Hyeon Chung in a straight-set final. Many things happened from then: Quinzi went through a lot of up and down, while Chung reached this year's Australian Open final defeating, among the others, Novak Djokovic. Quinzi does not regret his triumph at the All England Club, and in an exclusive interview with Tennis World USA, he said: 'It was a big emotion because I wanted to win a Grand Slam that year', the 22-year-old Porto San Giorgio native said. 'After the first week, I told myself: "What happens? They either have to play at the limit with me otherwise I break everyone, which means I can beat anyone". And in the end, it happened. How can I regret something like this?'
Expectations were so big in a country like Italy that last featured a top 10 ATP player 40 years ago, in 1978, with the world No. 7 Corrado Barazzutti. And Quinzi is the first to admit mistakes. First of all, switching at least five-six coaches, which raised a lot of criticism. 'I do not care what others say. If we look at all the bad comments then you cannot play tennis anymore. I may have done a mistake, but I felt I had to do that way. I was on all the Italian TV channels, and I did not handle well the pressure also in the following tournaments.'
Quinzi had big expectations as well. At the time, he had said he wanted to face Rafael Nadal and win the US Open. The truth is that he did not even play in a main draw Grand Slam, but he hopes to do it through direct ranking in a short time. 'In 2019 I want to crack the top 100', said the world No. 147, who just achieved his career-high ranking. 'I had a great year in terms of rankings, but I have some regrets because I did not use in the advantage that I was consistent at the end of the year', said Quinzi, who won two Challengers and two Futures.
He trained twice with Nadal both at the French Open. Gianluigi praised the Spaniard: 'Obviously the mentality that player has is out of normality compared to others. Even if he is doing bad and he cannot play anymore, in the end, he heads into the court and you see he can do it. He has the strongest mentality in the world.'
Finally, we asked Quinzi if he would be able to beat the best Serena Williams: 'Sure. Of course.'
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from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2rwYUjr
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