Sara Errani and Giulia Dal Pozzo lose by a narrow margin but exit the tournament amid applause from the big names

Success hasn't arrived, but the test has been passed. With flying colors. Because just two days after the final - the second - won at Roland Garros, Sara Errani didn't go far from winning at the Foro Italico , but with the padel racket on her debut in the BNL Italy Major. The final score reads 7-6 7-5 for "Laia" Rodriguez and Sandra Bellver, but Sarita, flanked by a splendid twenty-year-old - with a great future - like Giulia Dal Pozzo , took her victory by keeping two professional ladies on the court for two hours and a quarter , respectively number 43 and 57 in the FIP ranking. Stuff for Errani, an eternal young girl who at 38 years old still knows how to amaze, so much so that she even ended with more than one regret. Most of it for the 7 set points missed in the first set , spread across three different games, or for the opportunities not capitalized in the second. But we are still talking about a great tennis player loaned to padel for a week: it is hard to ask for more.

At the Foro Italico, as expected, curiosity and enthusiasm won, from everyone . Starting from the public that crowded the marble steps of the Pietrangeli and made the Italians feel their warmth, but also many insiders, the FIP president Luigi Carraro, the national bomber Valentina Giacinti and various padel phenomena who wanted to take a peek. We even glimpsed the world number one Ari Sanchez (a promise kept: she said she would be there and she did), but also the reigning champion Federico Chingotto, the finalists of the Major 2024 Llaguno/Sainz, Claudia Fernandez or the other Spanish Lara Arruabarrena, who made the transition from high-level tennis to the Premier Padel circuit – she did it – full time, while maintaining her historic friendship with Sarita.

You can bet that this Errani has convinced everyone, with her zero-risk but also zero-error padel , natural for her who has patience on the court in her DNA. Her opponents quickly understood that setting up the match against her would not have been enough, and the battle was real, heated, in all respects worthy of a Major. The bitterness of the defeat will pass in a flash, while the satisfaction for the quality of the experience will remain and stimulates even more reflections on a future with the paddle . Soon Sara will return to her usual racket, the tennis one, to prepare for the tournaments on grass with the dream of winning at Wimbledon too. But the Roman afternoon said that we can (or must) talk about a tomorrow in padel .