Cobolli's obsession has a name
The Italian talks from Cincinnati about his ambition to be part of the upcoming ATP Finals in Turin. A goal that is currently quite close, although the Italian is not overly confident.
There are goals that are pursued and others that, when they start to get too close, it’s better to stop looking at. Flavio Cobolli finds himself exactly at that point. The Italian arrives in Cincinnati positioned in qualifying spots for the ATP Finals in Turin, a possibility that just a few months ago seemed distant and has now become an uncomfortable presence.
So much so that Cobolli himself acknowledges the problem: “I’m trying not to think about it, although it’s obvious that I do, and perhaps that is precisely the problem,” he commented in statements gathered by Eurosport during the tournament's Media Day. This is tennis, with its dose of small psychological cruelty: first, it teaches you to dream about something, and when it’s within reach, it forces you to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Cobolli currently occupies the fourth position in the Race, with about 3,040 points and a considerable cushion over the first player outside of Turin. The problem is that those numbers stop being numbers when you step onto the court. A 30-30 might seem like a spot in the ATP Finals. A break point can become, in an overly imaginative mind, hundreds of points and a ticket for November. At that moment, the opponent is no longer just the player in front of you.
Cobolli's Dream and the Pressure to Fulfill It
Cobolli arrives, moreover, after a small slowdown. After an extraordinary clay season and his final in Roland Garros, he reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, but then strung together losses against Roman Andrés Burruchaga in Umag and Yannick Hanfmann in Montreal. Two setbacks enough to remind him that the race to Turin is not won by looking at the ranking, but by playing matches.
Here appears the most interesting part of his statements, where the Italian tries to turn pressure into motivation. He wants to use the goal as “a mental push,” a force that also helps him during training. But be cautious, because we are facing a very thin line. Wanting something is healthy; needing it to happen can become a burden.
Cobolli is now discovering one of the most complicated stages for any athlete, when he stops playing solely to grow and starts playing also to maintain a position that has been very hard to achieve. He is no longer just the young Italian trying to make his way among the best. Now he is one of the best trying to ensure the year doesn’t slip through his fingers. And that changes the conversation, even if the court still measures exactly the same.
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, La obsesión de Cobolli tiene nombre y apellidos