Sunday, April 6, 2025, a day that will go down in Italian tennis history: at 3 p.m., Flavio Cobolli won the ATP 250 in Bucharest, defeating Argentina’s Sebastián Báez with a double 6-4; three hours later, it was Luciano Darderi‘s turn, who defeated Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor in two tiebreaks in Marrakech. The two thus obtained, respectively, the 100th and 101st ATP singles titles for Italy in the Open era, a historic achievement that coincides with another special anniversary: it is only the third time in history that two Italians have won ATP titles on the same day. It happened on July 22, 2018, when Fabio Fognini defeated Richard Gasquet in Båstad (Sweden) and Marco Cecchinato beat Guido Pella in Umag (Croatia), and on April 24, 1977, with Paolo Bertolucci‘s victory over John Feaver in Florence and Corrado Barazzutti‘s victory over Eddie Dibbs in Charlotte (USA). We can read Gianni Clerici’s markedly sarcastic comment on this latest success in his report of April 26, 1977, in Il Giorno:

For someone who has the unusual job of tennis critic, covering tournaments played a thousand miles away from Milan can be ambiguous, or even misleading. Here I am, watching a tournament on green-colored clay, taking place in a country called Charlotte, which I know nothing about, won by Corrado Barazzutti with a score reminiscent of Jack Kramer in 1947. Corradino lost two games to Amritraj, four to Okker, three to Panatta (sic!), and six to Eddie Dibbs in the final. Barazzutti even beat Panatta and Dibbs, players who had qualified for the semifinals in Dallas, 6-0 twice. The critic is immediately faced with a basic choice: was Barazzutti going full speed, or were the others standing still?