Who is Lorenzo Sonego: the surprise quarterfinalist who wants to make history at the Australian Open

He Australian Open 2025like the vast majority of all Grand Slam tournaments, always enjoys some surprise between the final rounds. As were Jack Draper and Ben Shelton at the US Open in 2024 and 2023 respectively or Chris Eubanks and Roman Safiullin at Wimbledon 2023, Now it’s Lorenzo Sonego’s turn.

At Melbourne Park, the 29-year-old Italian tennis player (he will turn 30 on May 11) is breaking out against all odds. For the first time in his career he is in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam competition. Prior to this adventure in Australia, the Turin native had only reached the fourth round of Roland Garros (2020 and 2023) and Wimbledon (2021).

But let’s go back in time. The story of Sonego and tennis is not what we could call “usual” in a player’s journey. Lorenzo or “Sonny” as he is also known, made his first weapons in sports playing soccer in the lower divisions of Torino, a club from his city and of which he is a fan. There he shared a team with players who would later debut in Serie A such as Mattia Aramu (today at Mantova in Serie B) and Antonio Barreca (currently wearing the Sampdoria shirt in promotion).

But a coincidence made him change the No. 5 ball for the small fluorescent yellow one. In 2006, his father (an amateur tennis player named Giorgio) asked the coach of Circolo della Stampa Sporting, with whom he had played tennis a few times, if he could try out his son. The question was, to say the least, curious, since Lorenzo had not taken many tennis lessons in his life. But Gianpiero Arbino accepted.

“He was small and fragile, but after a few minutes Bonaiti and I looked at each other: ‘It’s not possible that he’s only played 2 or 3 times.’ He had a great aptitude for understanding the rebound of the ball, perhaps due to his football experience, and he was great at moving his feet. It was enough to give him 2-3 technical instructions and he was ready.” Arbino told the “Tennis Italiano” site in 2021. From there, little Lorenzo changed Torino for tennis.

“I was better at soccer… I don’t know why I chose tennis. Maybe because I liked it more, it gave me more satisfaction. Or maybe because it was an individual sport” Sonego also declared in “Tennis Italiano”.

The most curious thing is that Sonego did not have a career as a tennis player at the “Junior” level like the rest. He only played one tournament in Florence, losing in the first round without giving up sets. And this is how Arbino explained it: “Their parents trusted me when I advised them not to do too much youth activity, also because it made no sense to make them waste their money and perhaps reap two years of defeats.”

His debut on the Challenger circuit took place in 2014. Being ranked below 1500th place and after competing in qualifying, he entered the main draw in Biella, where he made the second round. From there, the professional Sonego came to light. Shortly after, the fruits bore fruit. After a lost final at the ITF in Lecco against the current Top 15 Tommy Paul, he became champion in another ITF in Italy (Santa Margherita Di Pula) against the German Daniel Altmaier.

From that moment on, his results (and his ranking) began to improve drastically. By 2017 he had already been a champion at the Challenger level (Ortisei) and had become among the best 250 tennis players in the world. His growth did not stop and in 2018 he debuted in a Grand Slam (Australian Open, R2 after qualifying), entered the Top 100 and in 2018 won his first ATP trophy: Antalya against Miomir Kecmanovic.

In the last five years, Sonego has won three other trophies (Cagliari, Metz and Winston-Salem) and reached the Top 25 of the ATP world rankings, with No. 21 as his best position. In addition, he can add to his showcases a victory against Novak Djokovic at the ATP 500 in Vienna in 2020, the only tennis player from the “Big 3” whom he was able to defeat.

Returning to the present, Sonego qualified for the quarterfinals of the Australian Open after consecutively beating Stan Wawrinka, Joao Fonseca, Fabián Marozsan and Learner Tien. A simple path if you take into account that in that part of the draw there were Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, surprisingly eliminated at the hands of the youth players Fonseca and Tien, who entered from the qualy.

The next step to continue making history will have “Sonny” facing the young Ben Shelton, a rival whom he knows and has already defeated in the past (Roland Garros 2023). Without a doubt, the most important game in Sonego’s career, who a little more than a decade ago dreamed of dressing in garnet and debut in Serie A.