Jet-setting tennis star Matteo Arnaldi jokes that he’s a citizen of the world, but the world No.37 can’t help but feel more than a little bit Australian thanks to some fortuitous events in the middle of Italy two years ago.
Arnaldi was fighting hard to make his way in professional tennis, playing in lower-tier events on the Challenger tour, when he met his partner Mia Savio, a Melbourne resident who’d travelled to study at the university for foreigners in the city of Perugia in June.
Matteo Arnaldi and his girlfriend, Mia Savio.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
“She was there to study, and I was there in the same city to play a tournament,” recalled Arnaldi, now aged 23.
“Then she, through a friend, she came to watch – [watch] one of my best friends! And then we met and started to date.”
Arnaldi and Savio have been together since, and Melbourne is like a second home for the Italian star whose career is on a steady upwards incline.
“I think maybe thanks to her,” Arnaldi said about his rankings rise.
“When we met I was like 230 in the world, or something like that, then at the end of the season I was 120. And then when I came here to Australia to stay with her, and just after I was like top 100.
“It was everything unexpected.”
Arnaldi played a pivotal role in Italy’s drought-breaking Davis Cup victory last year, defeating Australia’s Alexei Popyrin in the final. But the moment was laden with emotion as Savio’s father Robert had recently passed away. Arnaldi described Robert, who had Italian heritage, as “my second father away from home”.
“It’s very emotional. More because a very important person passed away a month ago for me and for my girlfriend,” Arnaldi said on court in Malaga, Spain.
“So this is for him and she doesn’t know what it means to me.”
Weeks later he paid further tribute to Mia’s father on social media.
“Hey Robert. What can I say, not even a year since I met [you] but it felt like forever,” Arnaldi posted on Instagram.
“We travelled a lot this year with Mia and [you] have been part of it most of the times, [you]’ve been like my second dad away from home and I couldn’t be more grateful the way [you] accepted me in the family and in the life of [your] daughter.”
With his Australian ties, Arnaldi now heads to the southern hemisphere as soon as possible each year to prepare for the Australian Open, helping him acclimatise to the baking heat that often occurs each January.
This year, the couple will celebrate Christmas Day in Melbourne’s inner east and head to the beach “to live the real Australian Christmas”.
Arnaldi will play the first major of 2025 and lead-up events in Brisbane and Adelaide as one of the players who’s helped drive Italy to a strong position in world tennis. Last year’s Davis Cup win was the nation’s first since 1976. Italy also won this year’s Davis Cup.
Savio is hardly a stranger to the sport, but she’s managed to adapt her life to spending plenty of time on the road with a tennis pro. The changes were almost immediate.
“After we had a couple of dates in Europe, Matteo actually came to Australia and stayed with my family straight away,” Savio said.
“Then it was sort of that weird period, COVID had just happened. I was still doing university, but it was kind of transitioning [between] online and [study] in person.
Matteo Arnaldi playing during the 2024 Australian Open.Credit: AP
“I grew up playing tennis as well, I knew about the tennis tour and how the tennis tour worked.
“My brother also played college tennis [and] I knew about the life of travelling and that it’s pretty intense.
“I kind of just got thrown into it because we also met at a Challenger [match], and then all of a sudden you [Arnaldi] were in the professional tour.
“Things stepped up really quickly.”
Sanremo-born Arnaldi is grateful that his time on the Challenger tour two years ago meant plying his wares playing within a small geographical area as Italy hosted several tournaments.
“We were lucky because in that period I was kind of playing in the same place [Perugia] for a while, like three weeks,” he said.
“It doesn’t happen very often for a tennis player to play like very close in the same cities.”
Asked about being one of the first international players to arrive in Melbourne ahead of the Open – starting on January 12 – Arnaldi said, smiling: “I don’t call myself international any more.”
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
