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Italian tennis icon Nicola Pietrangeli has passed away at the age of 92. During his glittering career, Pietrangeli won two Grand Slam singles titles at the French Open and won the doubles title at Roland Garros with countryman Orlando Sirola. After he retired, Pietrangeli became Italy's Davis Cup captain, guiding the team to its first-ever title.

Tributes poured in after the Italian Tennis Federation announced Pietrangeli's death on Monday morning. The news comes months after his son, Giorgio, passed away aged 59 in July. "Italian tennis mourns its icon. Nicola Pietrangeli, the only Italian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, has died at the age of 92," the Italian Tennis Federation wrote.

Federation president Angelo Binaghi told Sky Sports Italy: "Today, Italian tennis loses its greatest symbol, and I lose a friend. Nicola Pietrangeli wasn't just a champion: he was the first to teach us what it meant to truly win, on and off the court. He was the starting point for everything our tennis has become. With him, we understood that we too could compete with the world, that dreaming big was no longer a gamble.

"When you talk about Nicola, you immediately think of the records, the Davis Cups, the titles and triumphs that will forever remain in our history. But the truth is that Nicola was much more. It was a way of being. With his cutting wit, his free spirit, his inexhaustible desire to live and joke, he managed to make tennis something human, real, profoundly Italian.

"Talking to him was always a pleasure and a surprise: you could leave a conversation laughing out loud or with a reflection that stayed with you for days. In my office, there is a photo that is very dear to me: me as a child, a ball boy in a Davis Cup match in Cagliari, and in front of me, Nicola Pietrangeli.

"Every time I look at it, I feel like I'm going back to that day. And I realise that, ultimately, everything began there for me. That photo is not just a memory: it's a symbol. The symbol of how a child can fall in love with a sport thanks to someone who embodies it so fully and naturally. Nicola was not only the greatest player in our history. He was tennis, in the deepest sense of the word."

The Italian Open also shared a statement on social media. One of the showcourts at the Masters 1000 event in Rome is named after Pietrangeli. "It is with profound sadness that we say goodbye to Nicola Pietrangeli, a true legend of Italian tennis and two-time Rome champion (1957, 1961). His legacy will forever live on in the history of our sport, in the memory of our tournament, and in the stadium that proudly bears his name. Ciao, Nicola," they posted.

Pietrangeli won the French Open, then the French Championships, in 1959 and 1960. In 1959, he also won the men's doubles title in Paris alongside countryman Orlando Sirola. And he claimed the mixed doubles crown with Brit Shirley Bloomer in 1958.

The Italian won 44 career titles and reached No. 3 in the world. And he has become synonymous with the Davis Cup in Italy. Pietrangeli played a record 164 matches across singles and doubles for his country in Davis Cup and then captained the team to their first title in 1976.

Pietrangeli's son, Giorgio, passed away in Rome in July, aged 59, due to an incurable illness.