“My life is more than tennis. Berrettini and Satta? On social media there is envy. Vaccine investigations? I’m calm»- Corriere.it

Camila is a rebus to be solved without haste. The iconography on Instagram, where she travels fast to 700,000 followers, helps her. She in a mini dress in Miami, her belly out in Florence, her in lingerie in the mirror. The photos in which she plays tennis are very rare, Camila: «My life is not just sport. There are other channels to follow tournament results. On social media I want to share other things about myself. My femininity, my being a woman, even a blouse that I like, if I like. Not private life: that’s just mine. I consider myself an introverted person, this is how I tell myself. They’re just photos…”

Camila Giorgi, 31 years old, from the Marches of Macerata, daughter of Sergio, an Argentinian from La Plata, and Claudia, an Italian of an Argentinian mother, No. 26 in the world in the period of maximum splendor, has returned to wearing the national team shirt: beating Slovakia, the Italy got the pass for the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup, the girls’ Davis Cup. Anyone who says that with those 400-year-old legs she could have won much more is not wrong. Camila, for a change, disagrees.

Why?

«I don’t remember anything about my matches: as soon as I finish, I remove everything. My parents taught me that life is much more than tennis. We always talk about my father, they say he controls me, that he is despotic. False. I dedicate every success to him, he has always trained me, he believed in me from the beginning: I owe him everything. It’s not true that he asks me to play until I’m forty: I have no restrictions, the last word is always mine ».

He often travels with his brother Amadeus, then there’s Leandro.

“We are a very close family. We have a unique understanding, continuous communication. Mom, who isn’t interested in sports, is our artistic side: the Giomila brand is now well established, today she designs the dresses just for me. We always talk about dad, but Claudia is also important. We had a wonderful family trip last winter.’

In Argentina.

«I disappeared from tennis for three or four months, first to treat a plantar fasciitis, then for the trip to my parents’ country. In Argentina it was an extraordinary adventure, an important journey that reconnected me with my roots. I saw friends, relatives, the family reunited. For once, I was a tourist.’

Not surprisingly, he then won the tournament in Merida, Mexico.

«A perfect week, playing at a high level. I deserved it, come on.”

Do you remember the final with the Swedish Peterson?

“Yes Yes sure. A phrase of mine has become a meme on social media: “I don’t follow tennis”. In the sense that once the tournament is over, I’m talking about something else. It’s normal. One more trophy doesn’t change my life, tennis is a job and I’m pleased to win, of course, but the meaning of life is different. Every time I win a title, they ask me: what changes now? It does not change anything! Change that tomorrow I’ll do something else».

Does hate on social media affect you? There is no shortage of foul-mouthed comments under her photos. And what do you think of your colleague Matteo Berrettini, overwhelmed by the haters for the relationship with Melissa Satta?


«How can you criticize a person you don’t know, and who perhaps has taken time for himself like Matteo? If I don’t like someone, I stay miles away, but anyone and anything can be hidden behind a keyboard. Also a great sadness. We live in a world like this: everything is done anonymously, secretly, it’s demeaning. There is so much envy around, people talk without knowing us and without knowing. Nothing changes for me. I am impervious to criticism, very cold ».

Even the controversy over the vaccine affair?


«The investigations underway are on the doctor from Vicenza, who to cover her back she mentioned the names of famous people, not on me. I’m vaccinated in several places: vaccinated and calm, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to play in recent months, as I have. For me, this story is over.”

At 31, do you see a future after tennis?

«I have many projects, to be built little by little. I like writing as a hobby: a children’s novel is one of my dreams. I’m not in a hurry, I’ll play tennis as long as I feel like it. Then I see myself on the pitch with the little ones and people with disabilities. One day I would like to devote myself above all to this».