The Italian player won one of the longest deciding set in Davis Cup history to overcome Belgium's Zizou Bergs during the semi-finals
Flavio Cobolli and Matteo Berrettini guided the Italian squad to Davis Cup victory as the hosts beat the Spanish team to claim a record-breaking three-peat title in front of an overjoyed local supporters
48 hours after he narrowly won a marathon 32-point decider, Cobolli once again shone as he recovered from behind in sets to defeat his Spanish opponent in three sets
The 23-year-old's gritty comeback victory win sealed a 2-0 victory for his nation in Bologna after Berrettini had prevailed 6-3 6-4 against the Spanish player
It is a fourth Davis Cup victory overall for Italy, who are the first nation to achieve three consecutive championships since title holders no longer received automatic qualification to the championship match 53 years ago
Supported enthusiastically by the vast majority of a sell-out 10,000-strong crowd, the Italian star overcame a slow start to trigger scenes of jubilation among the team players, staff and fans
Cobolli was surrounded by his team-mates on the playing surface but paused for a brief time to commend his opponent on his performance before rejoining the celebrations
Each the Italian squad and the Spanish team reached the final even with being without star athletes, with the absence of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner denying spectators a seventh meeting of 2025 between the top-ranked tennis stars
But, with Italian number two another key player also missing, the Italian duo owned their opportunities in the limelight with perfect records from three singles matches each this week
The crowd chanted the player's name as he kept his composure to close out his recovery triumph to love, having achieved the decisive break in the penultimate game of a tense deciding set
That was no mean feat, given he had admitted he had achieved a "dream" in guiding Italy to the showpiece on home soil
In opposition to the scenes of Friday night, when the athlete removed his shirt in jubilation on "one of the best" moments of his life, the ranked player faced the price for a poor beginning as he conceded a one-sided first set
But Cobolli initiated a essential, immediate comeback after falling a break down at the start of the following set
Cobolli's fortunes appeared to shift after a brief stop in play when a member of the audience became ill
When the match continued, and with Munar down break point, the player lobbed over a volley that hit a lucky net cord and brought the set back on level terms
Even though annoyingly prevented multiple opportunities on his opponent's service game, Cobolli seized control of a must-win tie-break to force the decider - where he once again performed
The Italian star had previously taken his team competition singles victory run to 11 matches with an excellent performance against Carreno Busta
The former Wimbledon runner-up converted his third break point for a 5-3 lead before confidently serving out the opener to zero
Having taken 11 of the last 13 points to take the first set, the player appeared ready to strengthen his hold on the match upon creating two break points in the opening game of the following set
His opponent succeeded to save both before putting together a sequence of solid serving performances - but Berrettini seized his following chance and served out to love to finish his triumph
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