Camila Giorgi Completes Incredible Summer For Italy
Locker Room
August 16, 2021
Camila Giorgi showed just how deceptive appearances can be with her extraordinary triumph in Montreal.
And it was a reminder to us all that you can achieve amazing things later in your career too.
Meanwhile Daniil Medvedev also reigned in Canada with a commanding final display in Toronto.
The popular Russian may not have claimed a Grand Slam yet. But he is a habitual winner and surely taking that first major is only a matter of time?
The weekend belonged to Giorgi and Italy, though.
What a summer that beautiful nation has enjoyed!
First they took soccer’s Euro crown. Then the blue riband 100 metres at the Olympics. Jannik Sinner kept the party going with his Washington win.
Now Giorgi has claimed her first 1000-level title at the age of 29.
To those who haven’t seen her play before, she must look so delicate. What a shock it must be to those first-time, unsuspecting spectators when she turns on the power!
Giorgi and her father Sergio have been regular features at Wimbledon for years. Camila’s eccentric and super-intense dad wasn’t courtside for the big moment but he would surely have been dancing somewhere as he watched on TV.
Spare a thought for Karolina Pliskova, though.
The beaten Wimbledon finalist suffered heartbreak once more in a significant showpiece as her serve let her down again.
Maybe everything will click for Pliskova at Wimbledon 2022. She has what it takes.
But Giorgi stayed strong when it mattered on Sunday with some fizzing serves and front-foot big-hitting.
You did wonder whether her temperament might get the better of her when she threw her racquet in anger at one wayward shot.
We needn’t have worried. She found some inner calm once more.
And when Pliskova could only find the net and the match was won 6-3, 7-5, Camila could hardly find the emotion to celebrate.
Perhaps she couldn’t quite believe that she had turned her ranking to her advantage.
The world number 71 beat the fourth seed and somehow kept her composure in the moment of victory, just sitting there and taking it all in.
Was it a coincidence that she triumphed when her father wasn’t there to push her? Only Camila Giorgi herself will know.
But tennis is about finding strength within, not from without. It’s a lesson for us all.
And Daniil Medvedev knows what it takes to get over the line at this level.
He beat Reilly Opelka 6-4, 6-3 to notch his twelfth ATP title.
The Canadian crowds were magnificent at both finals and deserved longer matches. But they certainly added to the joyous atmosphere at each occasion.
And Medvedev will still remember the raucous throng at the epic US Open final in 2019.
After such a timely confidence-booster, Daniil will believe this could finally be his year for Grand Slam glory in North America.
Meanwhile we are already preparing for the greatest Slam of them all – Wimbledon 2022.
Will you be there?
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