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Superga Sport Panatta: the shoe that made the history of tennis is back An interview with Adriano Panatta 40 years after his triumph at Roland Garros Paris, June 13th 1976. Adriano Panatta enters the tennis halls of fame. In less than two weeks he won Rome’s Internazionali (May 30th) and Roland Garros (June 13th), the first Italian to win both tournaments in the same year. On August 24th he is listed in 4th place in the Era Open world ranking, the Italian record, still standing. In mid-December with the Italian team he won the Davis Cup in Chile wearing a red t-shirt as a protest against Pinochet’ regime: a gesture that will inspire a movie and a song. Today, after 40 years, Panatta is back in Paris to award the winner of Roland Garros. And to present a limited edition (100 pairs) of the tennis shoes he wore when he became a legend: Superga Sport Panatta. The same that on that June 13th 1976 had suddenly disappeared from his changing room thanks to someone ... Is it true that right on the morning of the final your friend and colleague Paolo Bertolucci left for Berlin taking your Superga with him? “Yes it’s true. I’m a size 9 ½, he’s an 8 1/2. Easily mistaken. We left our canvas Supergas to dry in the changing room. Paolo swapped them by mistake and put my pair into his bag”. What did you do when you realized what had happened? “It was a problem. First of all I was contracted to wear those shoes with that logo, the swallow’s tail. They proposed all sorts of things, including buying a pair of white tennis shoes and drawing the logo on it with a marker pen”. What about you? “I was so used to my Superga... Playing without them would have been cause for discomfort. I had been using them, and them only, for a couple of years”. Photos and film footage from 1976 show you definitely beat Harold Solomon wearing your Superga: how did you do it? “In 1976 Paris they were impossible to find. So I called my friend Manlio Bartoni, who had a shop in Rome called Bartoni Sport. He said: I’ll take two pairs in your size and run to Fiumicino airport. There he found a pilot who was stopping over at Orly, close to Paris, and gave him the shoes. The final was scheduled for 2 PM, I had got to the changing rooms around 10 AM. It was tight but the Superga got there in time”. Do you think you would’ve lost the match without them? “When you play at those levels, you become very set in your ways, and rather superstitious. In Rome for instance I always had to sit to the right of the umpire; in Paris to the left. The towel had to be placed on the back of the chair, never on the armrest. And I had also contributed to designing those shoes”. In what way? “At first I used the model with a classic sole: what I call the ‘orange-peel’. But I found it slippery. I had a new sole made with a herringbone pattern and I no longer slipped. That was a technical shoe for tennis”. How would you have reacted if you’d lost the final because of a pair of shoes? “I would’ve heavily insulted Bertolucci”. Not everything was plain sailing on that morning. Rumour has it a friend closed your hand in the car’s door. “Yes, it was my right hand. I said: hey, my hand! Then I realized I didn’t have a scratch. As if nothing had happened”. How does it feel to come back to Roland Garros as a veteran? To award the winner? “It’s fun”. What did it feel like 40 years ago? “I’ve never been over-enthusiastic after winning. On the night of that victory I was even a bit melancholy”. In 1983 you left tennis. You were just 33 years old. Why? “I had won all I was going to win. Tennis never was my life’s calling”. What does Adriano Panatta do today? “A lot of tennis seminars”. Are you having me on? “No: the seminar season starts in June. One after the other. And I work in communication”. Anything else? “Three children and twice a grandfather”. Your passions? “I like cooking. Actually that’s not it: I’m an extremely good cook. Then there’s speedboat racing and golf”. What’s your favourite place? “The seaside”. And in Italy? “The coast of Sardinia”. Why did you start playing wearing Superga? “I don’t know if I should relate this, it might sound a bit arrogant”. Give it a try. “It was 1975. The managing director of Pirelli, which at the time owned Superga, called me: Panatta would you be so kind as to come and see me in Torino? I obliged. He welcomed me in his office and told me he wanted to give me a contract. He asked me how much I wanted. I replied: 100 million lire. He said: Do you know I’m the managing director and I only earn 30 million? And I candidly replied: do you know I can put balls on a line?” That required a certain nerve. “I was 25 years old and had the arrogance of youth. I earned more with shoes than I did with clothing”. How did you get back in touch with Superga? It’ s been quite a while since ownership passed from Pirelli to Torino’s BasicNet group. “For the last 15 years, between April and May we have been organizing a great event in 10 Italian squares with primary school children. It’s called “Banca Generali A Champion as a Friend”, have a look online and see how much people talk about it! Athletes and children meet to spend an entire day together dedicated to sport; fun and physical activity allow us to share positive values such as team play, healthy competition, and discipline. Anyway a few years ago I called Marco Boglione (BasicNet’s founder and president, owner among others of the Superga brand) and asked him for a few polo shirts and technical kit. He said no. But in the end he sent me his Kappa tracksuits and here we are”. Who was the best tennis player you met on the court? “Borg. He was really hard to beat”. And how many times did you beat him? “I beat him 6 times, he beat me 9 times. But I always won at Roland Garros”. Is there a defeat which still burns more than others? “The 1978 final in Rome. Borg again, obviously”. Who’s your current favourite tennis player? “Federer, a prodigy. The only one I like to watch. He performs impossible feats. You look at him and think: but that’s against the laws of biomechanics. And yet, he can do it”. The best player of all time? “There isn’t one. Every era has its own”. A few years ago a sensational and terrible book was published: Open, Agassi’s biography. That ball-spitting dragon his father forced him to train with in his backyard elicited compassion from fans. Did you start because someone pushed you as well? “Not at all! I had two marvellous parents! My mother couldn’t even keep the score at tennis. My father was the caretaker at Parioli Tennis Club, but he never played once in his life. He never even asked me: why did you lose? They let me get on with it”. How does it feel to wear your Superga again 40 years later? “It makes me happy. We’ll be the competition for Stan Smiths (laughs)”. Have you often worn Superga off the court? “Always. Not the tennis shoes, the classic model. I’ve always worn them without laces. A must. White, blue and ecrù. In the summer they are a life saver, and the more you put them in the washing machine the better they look. If I think that when I moved house I was forced to throw away at least 20 pairs... I had used them so much they were threadbare”. .

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