Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
PARIS — The sight of two Italian men playing each other at a major tennis tournament, as happened Tuesday at the French Open, will only become more commonplace.
In Tuesday’s match on Simonne Mathieu Court, ninth-seeded Fabio Fognini defeated his compatriot Andreas Seppi, 6-3, 6-0, 3-6, 6-3.
The two veterans, both in their 30s, were once the lonely standard-bearers for Italian men’s tennis, but now the country has depth befitting Lake Como: 23 Italian men are in the top 250 of the ATP rankings, the most of any country.
Three of them were seeded at Roland Garros, giving Italy the same number as traditional powers like Spain and France.