ATP Tour stars share their Halloween memories | ATP Tour

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How to take a candy from… Berrettini? ATP Tour stars share their Halloween memories

October 30, 2024

Millions of kids (and some parents!) around the world will go trick-or-treating on Thursday night to celebrate Halloween. Let’s hope they’re luckier than Matteo Berrettini when, as a child, the ATP Tour star searched for candy in his hometown of Rome.

“I lived in an area where it was safe for children to go around and bother people,” the Italian recalls to ATPTour.com. “A funny story. We had a bag full of candy and things like that, and we knocked on a door. A lady opened the door and we said, ‘Trick or treat?’ He didn’t say anything, he just took something from our bag and closed the door. I don’t think he understood, we weren’t the ones who gave it to him, but we were shocked.”

Berrettini remembers dressing up once as a ninja and once as a vampire to get candy from his neighbors. For Grigor Dimitrov, the Italian’s rival on the ATP Tour, there was only one disguise in mind.

“I grew up in the United States. I think we were in California. I dressed as Batman, I’ve always liked Batman,” said the Bulgarian. “I grew up in a very small town, only 2,000 people, so we had trick-or-treating and we could have literally gone to every door. I remember it well, it was a lot of fun.”

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Alexander Zverev says he never lacked enthusiasm for putting on a Halloween costume as a child in his hometown of Hamburg. However, the No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings is not quite sure about the details.

“We celebrated Halloween. We went around houses to get candy, we dressed up, but I don’t remember what my favorite costume was,” Zverev said. “I’m old now, it was 20 years ago. I really dressed up, painted my face and all that. But I don’t remember which one it was.”

Which other ATP Tour stars have fond memories? It doesn’t seem like Flavio Cobolli or Alex de Minaur…

“I hate Halloween, because I’m scared. I don’t like horror, so I don’t like Halloween,” said Cobolli, who despite his fears has a ghost among his varied selection of tattoos. “I don’t like them [especialmente] skeletons,” De Minaur joked: “I didn’t have a childhood. I literally had no childhood. I never celebrated Halloween as a child. In fact, probably what I liked most about Halloween was leaving candy outside the house for the kids these days who go out trick-or-treating.”

At just 19 years old, Jakub Mensik doesn’t have to look back far to remember his childhood. However, if you’re looking for a Halloween costume keepsake, you’ll have to make one for yourself in the future.

“It’s not a deep-rooted tradition in the Czech Republic, but of course the atmosphere is great,” explains the #NextGenATP star. “It means winter is coming. It’s great to tell spooky stories. I’ve never dressed up, but maybe I will in the future.”

You could say that the ‘home’ of Halloween is the United States. Although Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe often went out with the sole intention of satisfying their respective sweet tooth cravings, trick-or-treating wasn’t the only aspect of your standard American Halloween.

“We used to do a lot of trick-or-treating and take advantage of houses that left candy outside the door,” says Paul. “I remember the first time we got to go without our parents it was fun. It used to be a little later, and you’d probably do something you weren’t supposed to do, but nothing really crazy.”

“I was Spider-Man a couple of times. I went to college on my recruiting visit in North Carolina and it was Halloween. I think I dressed up as a football player or something, but that was definitely one of my best Halloweens.”

Tommy Paul/Frances Tiafoe” style=”width: 100%;” src=”https://www.atptour.com/-/media/images/news/2024/10/30/16/23/paul-tiafoe-halloween-feature-2024.jpg”>

Photo Credit: Kate Brinksman/ATP Tour

Tiafoe remembers: “Halloween was crazy. I used to go to some of my friends’ houses and dress like a crazy person. I dressed up like a tennis player a lot. I dressed up like guys I admired, from the NBA or something. A couple Sometimes I was scared by guys with chainsaws and things like that, joking around, coming out of nowhere or out of the bushes.

“In my neighborhood it was fun to do that kind of thing. I had a very sweet tooth, so I spent hours running around asking for candy. It was the best day of my life. I can’t do that anymore, with this tennis thing, but I miss it “.

Tiafoe may no longer have to dodge chainsaws now that he’s on the ATP Tour, but that doesn’t mean that the world’s top tennis stars don’t suffer the occasional scare of another kind, as Berrettini can attest.

“Probably the scariest thing on the Tour is when you realize that you haven’t signed for a tournament,” says the Italian. “Then you say, ‘Arghhh, I forgot,’ and you have to call your coach and tell him you haven’t signed up. [Llamar a mi entrenador en esa situación] It’s probably what scares me the most.”