News & Press

Tuesday, October 28, 2008


The last salute to Federico Luzzi


A great crowd and a lot of commotion for the last salute to Federico Luzzi, the ill-fated player of Davis Cups crushed saturday at the age of only 28 years by a form of fulminating leukaemia and pneumonia. At Dome of Arezzo, the city where Federico was born, have been celebrated the funerals yesterday afternoon, all strait around the Luzzi family: to the mother Paola , Maurizio the father and Francesca the sister in this moment of immense pain for a premature and thus unexpected loss. To represent the Italian Federation Tennis there was the President Binaghi Angelo, vicario vice-president Alfredo Bartolini, Sergio Palmieri and the captain of Davis Cup Corrado Barazzutti, who had trained Luzzi in his first years in the circuit. The many companions of thousand battles in Davis and tournaments : among those Daniel Bracciali, Potito Starace, Filippo Volandri, Georgio Galimberti, Alessio Di Mauro, Vincenzo Santopadre, Davide Sanguinetti, Paolo Canè. And still Flavia Pennetta, Fabio Fognini, Gianluca Naso, Thomas Fabbiano, Andrea Gaudenzi. There were also Renzo Furlan, production manager of the Federal Center of Tirrenia, the coaches Umberto Rianna and Edoardo Infantino, a delegation of the Tc Parioli for which Luzzi had played the championship of A1 Series in the last three years:the last match eight days ago when in Olbia he withdrawn after hardly a fifteen against Tomas Tenconi of the Geovillage. Present the provincial president of the Cones George Cerbai, the representatives of all the tennis circles of Arezzo and of the other aretine sport federations , besides the representatives of Tuscany regional Committee of the Fit: the president Guido Turi, the vicario vice president Adrian Bandini and the vice president Sauro Dani. To the sides of the coffin there were at one side an enormous tennis raquet of flowers, from the other the banners of the Tc Parioli and the Municipality of Arezzo represented by the mayor Giuseppe Fanfani. The public square around the Dome and the church were crowded by hundreds of persons: the relatives, many friends, but also simple passionate of tennis who wanted to be there to give the extreme salute to a boy who all remember as full of life, of the sunny character and the contagious sympathy. A boy who had made himself to be loved since he moved the first steps in the juniores, till the entrance in the greater circuit and to the debut in Davis Cup as protagonist with the blue mesh in 2001. The ceremony has been officiated by the Vicario of the Bishop of Arezzo, Don Alvaro Bardelli. “Upon Arezzo and tennis it has come down a sadness cloud - he said - we will always remember Federico, he has carried the name of Arezzo around the world. He has been born with the raquet in the hand and he has left us with the raquet in the hand. We will miss his `luzzate', but we must celebrate life and not cry his death”. It has been also read a letter written from the companions with whom he had shared the career and he had been trained for years, from Bracciali to Starace. “Hello Federico - it recited - we are sure that you are already 'above' playing tennis with Saint Peter,wearing him out of short balls… of you we will remember the simplicity, the spontaneity and the sympathy… we will make you live again every day in our heart and when we will be sat around a table your place always will be occupied”. The chorus “Federico, Federico…” and a long, longest applause, has then greeted the exit of the coffin from the Dome towards the monumental cemetary, where Luzzi has been buried. Federico has left us, but from above he will continue to watch us. Smiling, as he always did in field and outside.

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