It’s a terrible, sad piece news that Gianni Ciaccia gave to me on Thursday evening from Paris. Luigi Serra, an extraordinary personality, born in Florence, with a degree in engineering, who moved to the US many years ago with two great passions, tennis and photography, has left us suddenly, without any warning, in Chicago, struck by this terrible and implacable virus that doesn’t loosen its grip on our lives.
Luigi’s is a tremendous personal loss for me, because I loved him and I often spoke to him on the phone to talk about many things and because we also shared a passion for Fiorentina’s football club. He always followed the team’s matches live from the USA – alas, their recent performance doesn’t even remotely compare to those of the two Serie A title clinched in 1956 and 1969, two iterations of the club’s roster he knew like the back of his hand – and he would call me when they were over to comment on them and to ask me, as he did the last time: “Will Prandelli be able to raise La Viola once again? Oh, we never score!” He said this in a Florentine/American pidgin, similar to Alberto Sordi’s “what’sa American!”
A few days ago, I sent him a beautiful article written for Ubitennis.com by Agostino Nigro on the death of Diego Maradona, and I was surprised that he didn’t send me back his comment. It wasn’t like him. I discovered only last night that Luigi had been in the hospital for 15 days. And thinking that a few days earlier, knowing that he also had a home in California, near Palm Springs and next to the tennis courts, I told him: “Why do you go to Chicago in the winter when the weather is much nicer in California and stay in California in the summer when it’s so hot you may die?” He had listed a series of reasons. Every year Luigi came back to Florence, with his very friendly wife Bonnie (I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it, but she came with him to have dinner with us in Settignano one evening three years ago… and it was a very pleasant evening, my wife still laughs about it…), and he wanted to go to Sanesi, a trattoria in Signa where – as he said – “you can eat the best Florentine steak in the world.”
For years he has been sending me his photos, from Indian Wells to New York, everywhere he went to – even to Roland Garros where he asked me to get him a media accreditation – and then he always asked me the same thing: “I come to your house and you make me a Florentine steak! Otherwise, no photos!”. It had become a game we repeated a thousand times. And I would say to him, “Luigi, I don’t like this picture, no steak!”
He had mastered a job that wasn’t his own. He had become very good at it and could make huge sacrifices just to take a good photo. And he was naturally super proud of his creatures. He was – it’s annoying and a pain to use all these past tenses now! – always smiling, mixing Italian and American slang among a thousand of “you know“, always with an alert eye to catch every beautiful girl who he was able to approach innocently with such a rare and irresistible congeniality, even if the age gap exceeded half a century. He could say anything, but no one would ever be hurt for it, so genuine and spontaneous was his approach.
We lived unforgettable moments with him, really funny ones. He took us to Little Italy, to restaurants that he knew perfectly although he lived in Chicago. He had friends everywhere. I never once saw him angry. Never. And, of course, at the last US Open we attended together, in 2019, we ate my usual bresaola with parmesan cheese and olive oil that I invariably brought to Flushing Meadows. We shared those moments so many times.
It was him, in March, who arranged an appointment with Ray Moore, Larry Ellison’s right-hand man and former director of the Indian Wells tournament (before Tommy Haas) for a Skype interview, and he was also a friend of Martin Mulligan’s, the former Wimbledon finalist and three-time champion at the Italian Open, with whom he spoke very often (and to whom it was my turn to give the sad news of his passing). He knew everyone, he was a friend to everyone. About fifteen years ago, he even did a photo shoot for my son, who had come to New York after spending some time at Bollettieri and Evert’s Academies.
There are no less than a few hundred photos taken by Luigi that we have in our archives. Sometimes he used to scold me because, while we had copyrighted his name on the Italian site, there was no copyright on the English home page, Ubitennis.net, which he ended up looking at more than the Italian one. That, instead, was his greatest satisfaction, to see his signature under a beautiful photo. I believe that the best gift we can give him from now on will be to dig out and publish some of his photos as many times as possible, starting with a selection of his best 50 pictures that will be released within the next few hours. And I’m sure that since he is anything but shy, in Heaven he will have already started to take pictures of each saint holding a racquet. Sometimes, sending photos on time was a problem for Luigi, but from up above there I’m sure he will find a way to make things work, as he always did in the end.
Rest in peace my friend, I have lost you but I won’t forget you. I love you and will always think of you. The most affectionate hug to your dear and sweet wife, your Ubaldo.
Article translated by Alice Nagni; edited by Tommaso Villa
