Wimbledon is aflutter with tricolore flags and cries of forza! The heroics of Jasmine Paolini and Lorenzo Musetti in reaching the semi-finals have propelled Italy into the uppermost echelons of grass-court achievement.
(For evidence of Italy’s natural clay-court supremacy, look no further than last month’s Roland-Garros, where Paolini and Jannik Sinner both went deep in the singles draws.)
Sometimes, it is all about one nation. In 1934, Great Britain garnered the honours with both a men’s and ladies’ singles champion (Fred Perry and Dorothy Round). In 1984, the main five titles featured Americans in both the champions and runners-up slots.
Thirty years ago, the flag hoisted on Centre Court was the Bandera de España and it really did seem like a triumphant territorial claim on the top of Mount Everest as, against all odds, Conchita Martinez became the first player from the sunbaked Iberian Peninsula to win the ladies’ singles title.
In doing so, she ended Martina Navratilova’s bid for a record 10th title in the final (main picture). (Similarly, last year, it was another Spaniard, Carlos Alcaraz, who deprived Novak Djokovic of his eighth Wimbledon title.)
What made the 22-year-old Martinez’s victory so unprecedented was the fact that she won her maiden Grand Slam on grass.
At a time when the All England Club courts played fast and low, Spanish players – slow and strategic in constructing a point as per the demands of clay – were not natural winners on the unpredictable living surface cultivated in the temperate climes of London SW19.
But Martinez trailblazed her way to victory using her trademark heavy topspin and slice, mixing up pace, depth and height, to deny the legendary Czech-born American in her 12th and last Wimbledon final, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
The fairytale had many satisfying threads of interest. Martinez grew up hitting balls against the wall of the factory in northern Spain where her father worked: she had always called the wall ‘Martina’.
Watched by Princess Diana and Prince William, the Spaniard clocked up an incredible 28 passing shots during the two-hour battle. If there’s any shot that literally leaves an opponent looking flat-footed – even a net-play maestro like Martina – it's a ball whistling past just out of reach.
‘I gave it my all and I lost the bloody match, but what a way to go,’ Navratilova said afterwards.
A former world No.2 and finalist at the Australian Open and Roland-Garros, Martinez’s expertise makes her a sought-after coach with players who are associated with great runs on the grass at Wimbledon.
In 2017, she stepped in for the Fortnight to help fellow Spaniard Garbine Muguruza when her regular coach Sam Sumyk was unable to attend – and saw Muguruza beat Venus Williams in two emphatic sets to seal victory 23 years after her own.
She has also guided Karolina Pliskova and most recently become coach to the supremely talented teenager Mirra Andreeva, much touted as a future Wimbledon champion.
"We've talked a little bit about that (the Wimbledon 1994 title)," Andreeva laughed.
"So I put on the video from YouTube, her final against Navratilova, and she's like, 'No, don't watch this moment. Start from this score in the second set'. And of course, I put the moment that she didn't want on purpose, but, yeah, of course she tells me about the way she played."
After linking up with Martinez a few months ago, Andreeva went on to construct the best Grand Slam campaign of her career at Roland-Garros, beating the veteran Victoria Azarenka and on-fire Aryna Sabalenka en route to reach her first semi-final at a Slam.
Martinez, it seems, is keen to impart her advice, and good-humoured about her working relationship. In the on-court interview following her quarter-final win in Paris, Andreeva joked that her coach had given her a whole lot of instructions… but she had "forgotten all of them".
