The Vela Messina coach starts the championship with the scudetto sewn on his shirts. Today the tennis players of the Peloritano club face Ata Battisti at home, starting at 9 am in the match of the 1st day of Group 2 of Serie A1, which also sees them together with the fearsome Tc Sinalunga and Tc Crema, i.e. the opponents last year in the final and semi-final, involved in the other opening match in Lombardy.
Compared to last season, the Spaniard Bernabé Zapata Miralles, the Italian Julian Ocleppo and the South American Fernando Romboli are no longer part of the Messina team. New faces include the Iberian Jorda Sanchis, number 415 in the world and the Italian-Argentinian Franco Emanuel Egea (no. 754 in the ATP ranking), the latter making his debut against the Trentino team.
Repeating yourself won’t be easy. «It will be almost impossible – said the president of the Spatari club – so our primary objective is to maintain the category, enhancing the many young people of the nursery. We must give them the opportunities that, in the past, we gave to the brothers Fausto and Giorgio Tabacco, to whom I extend my thanks for the great attachment they have always shown to their beloved coach Vela Messina.”
After the debut match, there will be three consecutive away games for captain Francesco Caputo’s boys. The matches of Sinalunga and Crema will close the first leg, while the return will open on the Ata Battisti pitches, then the home matches against Sinalunga and Crema, scheduled for 3 and 10 November. The regulation provides for the best classified of the four groups to qualify for the semi-finals. The second teams will retain their category, the third and fourth teams will have to save themselves in the playouts.
“Repeating will be very complicated, starting with the group, which is difficult and full of pitfalls – declares captain Francesco Caputo -. We will meet again with Sinalunga and Crema, teams built to win the title. The calendar is complicated, having to play, after the one against Ata Battisti, three away games in a row. The boys will give their all to achieve the best possible result.”
It will be essential to get full loot immediately. «We are called to win against Ata Battisti, a rival not to be underestimated. We will check the conditions of the brothers Fausto, who is well, and Giorgio Tabacco, who is awaiting his real competitive return. The Austrian Gerald Melzer and Egea will play with them.”
Meanwhile, the entire season, the ambitions and future programs of the Vela Messina coach were presented yesterday afternoon, in the premises of Viale della Libertà, by president Tato Spatari. Together with him, the team manager Umberto Weigert, Caputo, the technical director Gino Visalli and the athletes involved with Ata Battisti spoke. Present were the mayor Federico Basile with the Fitp provincial delegate Giovanna Famà.