Matteo Berrettini’s girlfriend, Melissa Satta, is hitting back at those who believe she is too blame for the Italian tennis pro’s abdominal injury.
Satta, a 37-year-old Italian model and television personality, told Vanity Fair that she’s been facing “bullying and sexism” online for months due her relationship with Berrettini, the NY Post reports.
“Too bad it’s an injury in the same place as the one in 2021, when I didn’t know him,” Satta said of Berrettini’s oblique injury, which will keep the 27-year-old pro out of the Tennis Internationals in Rome.
Watch Tennis Live with beIN SPORTS on Kayo. Live Coverage of ATP + WTA Tour Tournaments including Every Finals Match. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
The tournament, taking place at Foro Italico stadium, is currently ongoing until May 21.
“But in any case: do I really have to answer to these people?” Satta asked.
The model, whose ex-husband is German soccer player Kevin Prince Boateng, said she dealt with the same criticisms during their ten-year marriage.
She said fans blamed his injury on too much sex.
“Once, my ex-husband, who suffered from pubalgia (chronic groin lesion). There, too, they attacked me saying that we had too much sex and that was the cause of his physical problems,” said Satta, who shares a 9-year-old son, Maddox Prince, with Boateng.
“The proof that sexism has been and still is there: it’s always women who distract men, and if it’s a woman who loses, then it’s what she eats, not a man.”
The influencer, who has nearly five million Instagram followers, admitted that she “held back” responding to negativity on social media — until a newspaper headline caught her eye.
“It was something that had been going on for months, when our story became known in January: Berrettini doesn’t win because there’s Satta who distracts him, it’s too demanding,” she said of comments she’s received.
“But I was holding back. I’m not the one who denounces anything on social media. I have broad shoulders on judgments.
“The title of a newspaper: ‘Melissa Satta brings bad luck’, after the game at the Montecarlo tournament in which Matteo won, but after which he stopped for the injury.
“How can you write something like that? It’s not ethical. Legitimate my hatred.”
Satta also said she’s faced online bullying about her body, among other things.
“On the body mainly: sometimes I’m too thin, too fat, all redone, badly dressed,” she said. “But I like myself, and so these things don’t affect me that much.
“But if you go to my private sphere, the alarm goes off: I have told my life several times, with interviews, as well as on social media, of course, but here a limit has been exceeded.”
Last month, Satta took to Instagram and said she was subjected to “bullying and sexism” from those accusing her of causing Berrettini’s injury.
“I receive a lot of messages of insults, bullying and sexism,” she said at the time. “I have chosen to be a public figure, and I accept being exposed and exposing myself on social media, but I’m just trying to have a romantic relationship with another person, I simply want to try to be happy too.”
Satta, who went public with the romance in January, met Berrettini through mutual friends in Miami.
“We talked to each other, exchanged the phone number and from there we started to hear from each other,” she told Vanity Fair.
“The next day we both left, my life is in Milan, he lives in Monte Carlo.”
The couple kept up communication via “a thousand chats on WhatsApp,” Satta recalled, adding that she has spent time with his parents and he met mother.
Satta played coy when asked if she is in love.
‘I … I … It’s a very difficult question, also because I’m very shy and very reserved about these things, so I have a hard time answering though, er, I don’t live things lightly at all and if a person enters my life like that it’s because he’s a special person, otherwise he wouldn’t be there,” she said.
“I’m struggling a lot … I’m very happy though.”
Satta has also introduced Berrettini to her son.
“For me it is essential that there is also a connection, because if my son does not like the man for me it is not an option,” she said in part. “If Maddox isn’t serene, it ends there.”
After her split with Boateng, Satta vowed to “never again” date an athlete, but her deep connection with Berrettini allowed them to eliminate any taboos.
Berrettini, who previously dated tennis pro Ajla Tomljanovic, is set to miss the Italian Open after missing the Madrid Open with the abdominal injury.
The Italian pro is vying for his first Grand Slam win after falling to Novak Djokovic in the 2021 Wimbledon final.
This article originally appeared on the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.