Record tennis: Elena Pero, the woman who talks about Sinner, Berrettini and the other Italian tennis players:

«I have always had a great passion for tennis. I just played for fun, I watched a lot on television. I bought specialized magazines and in one of these there was an advert from Rino Tommasi who was looking for guys who could help him keep his records up to date. I made a selection and everything was born like this.” Elena Pero now sits in Rino Tommasi's chair, it is her voice that we hear recounting the exploits of the Italian tennis players and not only in the Sky commentary. Next to Tommasi was Gianni Clerici, with her, in most of the commentary, there is Paolo Bertolucci. «Publicly I do the same thing as Clerici and Tommasi, but sometimes it doesn't seem real to me, I would like to go back to listening to them in front of the TV, sitting behind them. They were unreachable” adds Sky's first tennis voice with whom we talk about the tennis phenomenon.

The data for the first four months of the broadcaster's year show that it is a phenomenon: tennis catalyzes 22% of the audience of Sky Sportswith an appeal that grew by 135% in one year. We no longer only mark football matches on the calendar, but also when Sinner, Berrettini and all the other Italian tennis players take to the court. On the dedicated Sky Sport Tennis channel alone, unique daily contacts have substantially doubled (+87%) compared to the same period in 2023. Data that captures a work made of passion and study. “One of my recurring nightmares is when I forget my papers, I have nothing, I don't even know who's playing, I don't have headphones.”

Is there study before each party or is there study in general?
“In general. Tennis is a sport that doesn't allow you to miss a week or two. Things happen every day. Life doesn't make money, but you always have to stay on track otherwise it becomes difficult to recover. You can't help but know what happened to that player in the previous days.”

A service to the viewer.
«Especially now with the pelvis having widened a bit in recent years. There are people who are perhaps not experts together with very up-to-date enthusiasts.”

Since when did these new spectators arrive? Since when has anything changed?
«The event that opened the eyes of many of this generation of tennis players, including the generation of Berrettini and Sonego, was the semi-finals of Cecchinato's Roland Garros. An exceptional thing, achieved by beating Djokovic which made other tennis players think that it was possible to succeed in such feats without being predestined. The following year there was Berrettini who made it to the second week of Wimbledon and then went to the semifinals at the US Open and then it was all a crescendo which then triggered a positive movement.”

There hadn't been the same impetus for women.
«We had the girls who had some crazy successes, an all-Italian final in a slam in the USA with Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci who got there by beating Simona Halep and Serena Williams. And again Francesca Schiavone who won Roland Garros and reached the final the following year. The public imagination has evidently not been so affected by events that are instead exceptional.”

Have Italian tennis players brought back spectators?
«Tennis in Italy had a moment of crisis between the 1990s and the early 2000s. The arrival of Federer and then Nadal and their rivalry helped a lot. We rooted for one or the other. The Wimbledon finals between the two of them and then came the third who was Djokovic. The Italians who made us take the leap were missing.”

Does the fact that they are all different in personality and gameplay also make the leap?
«Yes, everyone has their own style and then it's nice to see how close they are to each other. The other generation, that of the Seventies and Eighties, was divided into factions: Panatta and Bertolucci on one side, Barazzuti and Zugarelli on the other, Pietrangeli the captain who had everyone against him. It is clear that now they are close, Berrettini was in Malaga for the Davis final and was unable to play. He felt part of this team, he has charisma, the others listen to him, a complicity was created. Just think of Sinner and Sonego playing doubles together.”

What do they have in common?
«They are all simple people. They are exceptional at their work, but then they are absolutely normal people. Even the most common enthusiast, I'm not saying he identifies himself, but he recognizes himself a little in these people who don't live in unbridled luxury, who don't show off.”

Ideal place for commentary?
«Wimbledon. There is no other place that has the same atmosphere, I don't say sacred because it's absurd but you realize that it is the most important tournament. You can tell from the commentary station, from the ancient wood, from the lack of box boxes. There are like stalls with an open corridor behind them. Last year I made the commentary that if I stretched I would look into my eyes with those on Spanish TV. The grass is alive and restful for the eyes too. Paris is very elegant. In Rome you feel history, but always with something temporary. The beauty of Wimbledon is that you are immersed in tradition and yet there is also a crazy modernity in the services.”

The hardest thing about commentary?
«Don't lose control, stay objective and don't cheer. The most difficult thing, I think, is trying not to disturb those who are watching and trying not to overpower what you are seeing. You have to try to talk as little as possible because it's also nice to make sounds heard. And then try to work well with your partner, try to work as a couple in harmony so that each one makes the other look good. We need to find the right balance in sharing the emotion.”

Few women do her job.
«Very few. One year at Roland Garros, it must have been the early 2000s, a radio station came to do an interview with me because out of 30 commentary booths I was the only woman doing commentary. On that floor there was only the men's bathroom. However, tennis is the sport in which many grew up with Lea Pericoli's commentary, something that did not happen in other sports. She made a female voice acceptable.”

The current season has around 6,000 matches in 12 months, over 13 thousand hours of live competitions thanks above all to the Sky Sport Tennis channel. More than 100 tournaments between ATP and WTA, thanks to the five-year agreement until 2028, and around 300 hours reserved for analysis and insights. From 8 May, with the start of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, tennis will fully enter the most prestigious living room of the Sky headquarters in Milan Santa Giulia, the highly advanced Studio 2, which for the occasion will be the venue for comments, analysis , updates and continuous live interviews connected from the Capital. A new “central field of the story”, a unique, technologically cutting-edge environment, which will fully exploit virtual reality to transform itself into an open space projected towards the playing fields, enriched with graphics, statistics and informative focuses.

The Sky Sport tennis team, led by Other Sports editor-in-chief Marco Caineri, is built to ensure the highest level of quality of storytelling and commentary. Barbara Rossi has recently joined the great talents Paolo Bertolucci, Ivan Ljubicic, Raffaella Reggi, Laura Golarsa and Stefano Pescosolido, while Federico Ferrero has joined the commentators in the team always led by the unmistakable voice of Elena Pero and of which they are part, among others, Luca Boschetto and Pietro Nicolodi. The correspondents Stefano Meloccaro, Angelo Mangiante and Dalila Setti have the task this year of following the exploits of Sinner and his companions. The management of the dedicated studies is entrusted to Eleonora Cottarelli, with the great work behind the scenes of the entire tennis editorial team.