Brad Gilbert says there is nothing new about players having tensions over personal matters amid the rumours surrounding Lorenzo Musetti and Matteo Berrettini.
During Musetti’s Lyon Open title run last weekend, speculation mounted that the 24-year-old – who has two young children with partner Veronica Confalonieri – had allegedly had an affair with Berrettini’s ex Vanessa Bellini.
On Monday, Berrettini inadvertently added more fuel to the fire when he was asked about Musetti after his first-round win at the Vienna Open. The uncomfortable 30-year-old asked, “Is this live?”, before saying the single-hander worked “really hard to come back” and he “deserved” his Lyon title.
On Wednesday, former professional Nick Monroe introduced a segment on The Big T podcast about some “Italian tennis drama” between Musetti and Berrettini, and how there might be something with the relationships of their girlfriends and partners.
The former world No 253 pointed out how Berrettini has unfollowed Musetti on Instagram, but the latter still follows his compatriot. This led Gilbert to say this sort of thing has happened many times before in tennis.
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The former world No 4 said, “This is not the first compadres to have some issues with each other. There have been numerous things like this. I can remember in the 1981 Davis Cup final, USA vs Argentina.
“When Jose Luis Clerc and Guillermo Vilas were playing [John] McEnroe and [Peter] Fleming, one would come over on the changeover and sit and the other would go to the other side of the court. And the match ended up being 11-9 in the fifth (to the USA), they didn’t even talk to each other.
“So, huge controversy. For years, the Czech guys have had issues. In today’s social media, nothing surprises me. We had blowups and maybe almost fisticuffs in the locker room over things like this. These days, with Twitter you don’t know exactly [what happened] but like I said, these kind of things have happened forever in men’s tennis.”
Monroe hoped that they can “button up” any issues they have, particularly as they have known each other for many years.
Neither player has commented directly about this matter. Hot on the heels of the aforementioned awkward interview, it emerged that Musetti and not Berrettini had been selected for Italy’s Davis Cup Finals squad next month.
Musetti will line up alongside Flavio Cobolli, Luciano Darderi, Simeone Bolelli, and Andrea Vavassori.
