Italian tennis icon Pietrangeli dies aged 92

Former Italian tennis player Nicola Pietrangeli poses at the ATP Rome Open tennis tournament at Foro Italico in Rome on May 11, 2022. [AFP]

Nicola Pietrangeli, a two-time winner of the French Open, has died at the age of 92, Italy's tennis federation announced yesterday.

"Italian tennis is mourning an icon. Nicola Pietrangeli, the only Italian inducted into the World Tennis Hall of Fame, has died," said the FITP.

Born in Tunis in 1933 to an Italian father and Russian mother, Pietrangeli was widely considered the country's greatest ever tennis player until the emergence of current world number two Jannik Sinner.