Cobolli on learning from Alcaraz & leaving McDonald's behind

Good things come to those who wait.

Flavio Cobolli has reaped the rewards of that philosophy this year on the ATP Tour. The 22-year-old Italian has enjoyed a breakout 2024, racking up 31 of his 37 career tour-level wins and rising to the brink of the Top 30 in the PIF ATP Rankings. For someone who had won just six tour-level matches entering the season, that is quite some progress.

“Since I was young, I told myself, ‘You are good at tennis. You can do well in this sport. Stay calm, take your time and be patient, because the results will come’,” Cobolli told ATPTour.com. “This year, the results came, so I’m happy.” 

Cobolli enjoyed an extra reward for his breakout season on the ATP Tour last week, when he joined Team Europe as an alternate for its successful Laver Cup campaign in Berlin. Just eight months after he entered the Top 100 of the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time, Cobolli spent a week in Berlin rubbing shoulders and practising with the likes of Bjorn Borg, Carlos Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev.

“I learned a lot from the guys. They are amazing,” Cobolli said in Berlin. “I didn’t know anyone here [except Alcaraz], but since the first day I came here they treated me well. They helped me a lot. They gave me some tips for the future, for the rest of the season. They are really nice and I enjoyed this week.

“I knew Carlos well. We are the same age, and we know each other really well. We have a nice relationship. I prefer to talk about other things than tennis with him, but I asked [Grigor] Dimitrov a lot of things, and Zverev. Guys that have a little bit more experience. Of course, Carlos is already a legend of our sport, but we prefer to talk about football or other things for now!”

After impressing but falling just short of a semi-final spot at the 2023 Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF last November, Cobolli spent time training with Alcaraz in the offseason. He credits that training stint as the key to his impressive rise this year.

“I did a lot of work in pre-season,” he said. “We worked a lot to improve on my game and my [mentality]. We went to the Ferrero Academy in Villena with Carlos. We did a lot of work, had fun together, and I think beginning the season like this helped me a lot for the results. I learned a lot from his team, and I had good results after that preseason.”

Photo Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.
Cobolli’s first event of the year was the Australian Open, where he needed to earn entry in the main draw through qualifying. He successfully did so and advanced to the third round in Melbourne, which proved a pivotal and a crucial confidence-booster.

“I was one out [of the main draw] before the tournament, so I was really [disappointed],” he recalled. “But I qualified and then I won against [Nicolas] Jarry in five sets, so that match meant a lot to me. I also beat Felix [Auger-Aliassime] in February in Acapulco. It was a really good time for my career.”

Besides Alcaraz, Cobolli’s full-time presence on the ATP Tour has led to him crossing paths with another former World No. 1 and Grand Slam champion. In April in Barcelona, he was drawn to face Rafael Nadal in the Spaniard’s first competitive match for more than three months.

Taking on Nadal in front of an adoring home crowd was always going to be a tough assignment, and the 22-time major champion prevailed 6-2, 6-3. Yet Cobolli stayed true to his philosophy of staying patient in the face of tough outcomes, and he believes he took plenty away from the experience.

“Playing with Rafa is another level,” Cobolli said. “I watched him since I was young on TV and when the draw came out, I said, ‘I don’t know if I want to play with him, because I don’t know if I deserve it. I don’t know if I’m ready’. Of course I was a little bit nervous at the beginning, throughout the whole match even.

“It was a good experience. I enjoyed every point I did with him, and of course I learned also from that match. Things that helped me for the weeks that came after.”

Cobolli, who reached his maiden tour-level final in Washington last month, will next compete at another hard-court ATP 500, the China Open in Beijing. As he nears the end of his first full season on Tour, is there one key lesson he has learned from spending more time with the world’s best players?

“I think not just the Top 5 players in the world, but also the Top 50, they are really professional, and they never miss a thing,” he said. “They spend a lot of time recovering their bodies and healing well. All the training sessions they do are 100 per cent. At the beginning of the year, it wasn’t like this for me. I did 70 or 80 per cent, I ate McDonald's. Now it has changed after I watched them. I changed it.”

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