Born in Como on July 24, 1930, Gianni Clerici was much more than a sportswriter. Before turning to writing, he was a promising competitive tennis player, winning junior titles and competing in prestigious tournaments such as Wimbledon and Roland Garros. He soon chose to leave competition behind to devote himself to telling the story of tennis: for more than fifty years, he wrote for leading newspapers and authored books that became true classics of Italian sports literature. Regarded as one of the world’s most prominent tennis experts, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006. He liked to call himself “the scribe of tennis.”
Over time, his love of tennis developed into a true collector’s obsession: thousands of books, magazines, photographs and letters exchanged with leading figures. This extraordinary heritage became the Gianni Clerici Collection, now housed at the Catholic University of Brescia. Created in 2023 thanks to Professor Francesco Rognoni, the collection is now enhanced through the new web portal “The Scribe of Tennis. Books and Papers of Gianni Clerici”. The initiative was made possible thanks to the University’s Documentation Center in collaboration with Hyperborea.
This project makes the world of Gianni Clerici accessible to everyone: a vivid cultural legacy of his dedication and vision.
