Matteo Gigante is the 141st Italian to debut in a men’s Grand Slam tournament. The Italian, number 146 in the world ranking, will face the Frenchman Ugo Humbert in the first round.
In Italian history, the first to play a Slam tournament was Gino De Martino at Wimbledon 1911, the fiftieth debutant was Cesare Guercilena at Roland Garros 1962 and the hundredth debutant was Giorgio Galimberti at the 1998 United States Open.
From 1925 to 1949 27 Italians made their debut, from 1950 to 1974 38, from 1975 to 1999 there were 31, from 2000 to today 40 including Gigante. In recent years, Berrettini, Caruso, Gaio and Sonego have debuted in 2018, Sinner in 2019, Giustino and Mager in 2020, Musetti in 2021, Agamenone, Vavassori and Zeppieri in 2022, Arnaldi, Bellucci and Cobolli in 2023, Darderi and Nardi in 2024 , Giant in 2025.
There were very few who debuted in the Slams in the Australian event: the first was Adriano Panatta in 1969followed in that same edition (but they entered the race in the second round) Massimo Di Domenico, Pietro Marzano and Piero Toci. In 1976 Gianni Marchetti and Enzo Vattuone, then we jump to 1988 with Omar Camporese, Diego Nargiso and Massimiliano Narducci. The only one of all these mentioned to win on his debut was Narducci from the Marche who beat Mike Bauer by 75 64 36 46 75.
After Narducci they also won in Australia on their Slam debut Stefano Pescosolido in 1990 against Jan Gunnarsson, Andrea Gaudenzi in 1994 against Kartsen Braasch and the latest Lorenzo Sonego in 2018 against Robin Haase.
Related News :