SANTIAGO, Chile – Luciano Darderi is enjoying the best moment of his career, in sync with that of his compatriot and friend Flavio Cobolli. Italy’s second-tier players are running a tightly contested race, a “healthy rivalry”, according to Darderi.
The 24-year-old was crowned champion of the ATP 250 in Santiago, just hours after Cobolli triumphed at the other end of Latin America, at the ATP 500 in Acapulco. The two players, close since childhood, will now have to fulfil some kind of challenge after both winning on the same day. Some sort of “crazy” promise, now that they will see each other in California, where they will compete at the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells.
“We have something special with Cobolli, because last year when I won in Marrakech, the day before he had won in Bucharest. Yesterday morning I sent him a message: ‘Are we going to repeat it? Let’s make a promise together in Indian Wells if we both win,’” Darderi revealed after defeating Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann 7–6(8–6), 7–5 in the Chile Open final.
“He won yesterday, I won today, so we’ll have to talk about it. Neither of us knows yet what we’re going to do, but when we see each other there, we’ll come up with something crazy,” he said in response to a question from CLAY at the press conference.
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“It’s a healthy rivalry we Italians have. If you’re No. 4 in your country and No. 20 in the world, you’re doing pretty well,” Darderi said, standing beside the fifth trophy of his professional career, his fourth in less than 12 months.
Italy’s present on tour is so strong that a (near) Top 20 player, a clay-court champion and competitive in Grand Slams on hard courts, does not make the ideal Davis Cup line-up: the bar is extremely high, with Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti leading the way.
Darderi moved to within fewer than 70 points of the world’s Top 20, a target he had set for 2026 and is now on the verge of reaching as early as March. “By the end of the year I want to be Top 10,” he admitted in an interview with CLAY.
The Italian, born in Argentina, will travel to North America after a very strong South American swing, where, before his triumph in Chile, he reached the final of the Argentina Open.
A positive outcome that arrived with the “help” of his grandmother.
“On the changeover, at 6–5 in the second set, I asked my grandmother to help me win. It was a moment of desperation, and in many of those moments I ask her to help me, so she’s always there in the important ones; she gives me that spark and a lot of strength. Thinking about her helps me,” he explained.
Elisa, his paternal grandmother, was a central part of the family structure that sustained his career from the beginning. While Gino, the player’s father, worked in Argentina, she travelled through Europe with Luciano and his brother to accompany them at tournaments and make the project possible.
Darderi has her name tattooed on his right wrist — that’s why he often kisses it when he wins.
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