Adriano panatta biography

Italian tennis player (born 1950)

Adriano Panatta (born 9 July 1950) is an Italian former professional tennis player. He won the French Open in 1976, when he became the first Italian man in the Open Era to win a Grand Slam singles title.^[2] Panatta was also the only player ever to defeat Björn Borg at Roland Garros,^[3] doing so twice.

From 2018 to 2021, he was a regular guest of the RAI sport broadcast Quelli che... il Calcio.^[4]

Career

Panatta was born in Rome.^[5] His father was the caretaker of the Tennis Club Parioli, and as a youngster he learned to play the game on the club's clay courts.

Manuel orantes

He became a successful European junior player before turning professional.

In his early career, Panatta won top-level professional titles at Bournemouth in 1973, Florence in 1974, Kitzbühel and Stockholm in 1975.

The pinnacle of his career arrived in 1976, when he won the French Open defeating Harold Solomon in the fin