Rino Tommasi, the legendary voice of tennis, passed away today at the age of ninety. Together with Gianni Clerici, he pioneered the successful formula of sports commentary by a pair of commentators. Born in Verona in 1934, Tommasi began his career in journalism in 1953. Over the years, he worked with Tuttosport, Il Messaggero, La Repubblica, and above all La Gazzetta dello Sport, where he wrote for over forty years.

In 1981, he became director of sports services at Canale 5, a role he would also hold ten years later at Telepiù (Sky since 2004). During the same period, he distinguished himself as a narrator par excellence in sports commentary, particularly boxing and tennis. The introduction of a second voice in commentary was part of his visionary intuition: he formed a legendary partnership with Gianni Clerici, where the rationality of the Veronese and the creativity of the Comasco fed off each other, in a subtle balance between commentary and cultured digression. From a lexical point of view, the commentary booth is also fertile ground: ‘circoletti rossi’ (red circles), ‘veronica’ (veronica), ‘ricamo’ (embroidery) and ‘mini-break’ are just some of the countless neologisms coined by Rino Tommasi, who established himself as a great onomaturgist following in the footsteps of Gianni Brera, who in turn had described him as an ‘imaginative mathematician’.

The Gianni Clerici Fund contains twenty-one publications in which Rino Tommasi appears as author or editor: some of them also feature a dedication by Tommasi himself, making them unique and valuable items.