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Adriano Panatta (born July 9, 1950) is one of the
greatest Italian people|Italian tennis players of
all times, maybe second only to Nicola
Pietrangeli. 

Panatta won his only Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand
Slam event, at the French Open in 1976 defeating
Harold Solomon in the final (6-1, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6)
after having saved a match point in the first
round.  That same year, he helped Italy win the
Davis Cup, the only time it has ever done so, and
he won the Rome Masters thus achieving his career
highest world ranking, number 4.

At the French Open he holds the odd record to be
the only one who ever defeated Bjorn Borg on Paris
red clay courts. It happened twice, in 1973 in R16
(7-6, 2-6, 7-5, 7-6) and in 1976 in QF (6-3, 6-3,
2-6, 7-6). After his victory in the Roland Garros
tournament, in 1977 he won the World Championship
Tennis|WCT tournament in Houston where he managed
to defeat Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis.

Born in Rome, he was one of the best on red clay
court|clay. His power and perfect technique,
inexplicably, were never expressed on the fast
surfaces, where he would seemingly have had
advantages.  On grass courts, his only remarkable
performance was at Wimbledon
Championships|Wimbledon in 1979, when he was
defeated in the quarter-finals by the American Pat
Dupré.