Sports
Italrugby honors Sergio Parisse on special occasion

Rugby Italy honors Sergio Parisse
Sunday, Feb. 23, will be an important day for Italian rugby, not only because Gonzalo Quesada’s national team, fresh from its success against Wales, will take the field at the Olympic Stadium in Rome against the fearsome France led on the field by Antoine Dupont, but also because the FIR has decided, for that very date, to create a series of side events dedicated to one of the symbols of the oval ball in Italy and the world, Sergio Parisse.
The historic Azzurri captain, active in the national team between 2002 and 2019, collected 142 caps with the Azzurri, taking the field in no less than five editions of the World Cup, in Australia in 2003, France in 2007, New Zealand in 2011, England in 2015 and Japan in 2019.
The top brass of Azzurri rugby had promised to dedicate a special day to Parisse but the commitments of the former third line, now on the Toulon coaching staff, had not allowed him to participate in the special ceremony of awarding special caps to Azzurri Centurions, held in 2022 at the Olympic Stadium.
“Sergio’s career canò be defined only as extraordinary – said Andrea Duodo, president of the Italian Rugby Federation.”
By duration, by the quality of the game he was able to express until the day of his own retirement, by the’commitment that in every single minute he put in the service of the Azzurri jersey and the movement”.
“There could not be a better moment than the match on February 23 against France, which unites the two rugby worlds that have characterized his sporting career, to hand him the Centurion cap and, above all, to thank him, we along with our cousins and friends arriving from the’other side of the Alps, for the wonderful rugby he has given us for almost twenty years’
With 142 caps, Parisse è the player who has collected, as of February 2025, the most national team appearances. The other Azzurri centurions are Martin Castrogiovanni (119 caps between 2002 and 2016), Alessandro Zanni (also stopped at 119, between 2005 and 2020), Marco Bortolami (112 between 2001 and 2015), Leonardo Ghiraldini (107 between 2006 and 2020), Mauro Bergamasco (106 between 1998 and 2015), Andrea Lo Cicero (103 between 2000 and 2013) and Alessandro Troncon (102 between 1994 and 2007).
Sports
Roland Garros, semifinals: Jannik Sinner doubles his lead over Novak Djokovic

Jannik Sinner doubles his set lead against Novak Djokovic in the second semifinal of Roland Garros 2025: in fact, the South Tyrolean also ended the second set in his favor, thanks to 7 games won against the Serb’s 5 at the end of a set that lasted one hour and 11 minutes. Open applause for the two contenders, protagonists of a match of the highest level.
Sinner was off to a good start already in the first set of the Roland Garros semifinal. In fact, the world number one, against Novak Djokovic, number 6 in the ranking and seeding, had won the first set 6-4 after 46 minutes of play, reacting to a somewhat’ contracted start with a few strokes capable of undermining the confidence with which Nole had presented himself to the match on Friday night.
The two men had already started off on the right foot in the first set of the Roland Garros semifinal.
Jannik Sinner arrived in Paris as the No. 1 seed, and from the first round onwards he overcame France’s Arthur Rinderknech 6-4, 6-3, 7-5, the other transalpine Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-0, 6-4, Czech Jiri Lehecka 6-0, 6-1, 6-2, Russia’s Andrey Rublev 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 and Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik, beaten Wednesday by a score of 6-1, 6-5, 6-0.
Djokovic, on the other hand, reached the semifinals of the Paris slam on the wave of the 100th ATP tournament he won in his career, in Geneva: the Serb beat American Mackenzie McDonald with a triple 6-3, Frenchman Corentin Moutet 6-2, 6-2, 7-6(1), Austrian Filip Misolic 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-2, 6-3, 6-2, and German Alexander Zverev 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Sports
MotoGp, Ducati: Marc Marquez warns those who give him as favorite

Although he dominated Friday’s two timed sessions at MotorLand Aragon, Marc Marquez wants to avoid feeling overconfident on the eve of the Sprint Race and the MotoGp d’Aragon Gp. In fact, the Catalan rider of the Ducati factory team wanted to make a comparison with the Gp of the Americas, the only race that saw him retire, in Sunday’s test.
“As we saw in Austin, all it takes is one mistake to jeopardize a great job in the previous days– said Marquez, speaking to ‘Sky Sport‘, on the sidelines of the first day on the track -. That was also a circuit that, like Aragon, I like very much, but a mistake can happen: I do not want to repeat that’negative experience”.
It’s objective, however, the superiority shown by the number 93, who inflicted on his brother Alex, second in both sessions, almost a second in the first session and two tenths in the second: “It’s a circuit where I feel very good – he confirmed -. Perhaps a difficulty is brought by the wind, it bothered me in the right turns, but we are working well on these details”.
Marc Marquez arrives in Aragon after the first weekend of the season in which he did not climb either on Saturday or Sunday on the top step of the podium: in fact, at Silverstone, the Catalan finished second in the Sprint won by Alex Marquez (Ducati Gresini) and third in the Sunday GP, behind Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia factory) and Johann Zarco (Honda LCR).
Sports
Lorenzo Musetti, message to fans after withdrawal at Roland Garros

Lorenzo Musetti’s adventure at Roland Garros 2025 ended with a bitter withdrawal in the semifinals: Friday’s match against Carlos Alcaraz was well played by the Carrarino, who won the first set and was also very close in the second, but it was the evidence of physical problems manifested between the third and fourth that convinced Musetti himself to raise the white flag.
A few hours after the match ended, the Italian tennis player entrusted his official social profiles with a message addressed to his fans: “This is not the way I wanted to end this fantastic tournament – he wrote -. I will come back stronger”. Musetti then applauded the first finalist of the Paris tournament: “Always a pleasure to share the court with a friend” he said, quoting Carlos Alcaraz with a tag.
Musetti’s disappointment is strong and had already been expressed in the press conference on the sidelines of the closing match: “It’was a great match, the way it ended makes me very sad– said the second-best Italian tennis player, at the current ATP ranking level, behind Jannik Sinner -. I had the opportunity to go ahead by two sets but Alcaraz” level is very high.
Tennis Italy will therefore still have to wait for an all-Italian final in a Grand Slam tournament, a milestone that was instead achieved in women’s tennis at the 2015 US Open, when Flavia Pennetta beat Roberta Vinci in two sets. Musetti, who will move up to the No. 6 position at the next ranking update, will now have to undergo specific examinations to assess her physical condition and quantify how long she will need to recover from today’s knockout.
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