Matteo Berrettini rarely lets fans see his life outside the court. This week, a video from an Ibiza nightclub changed that. Filmed dancing during South Korean DJ Peggy Gou’s set, the moment has sparked genuine surprise, and a wave of romance speculation, from a player who’s spent the past two seasons buried in one injury setback after another.

Berrettini’s dance floor cameo wasn’t just unexpected because of who he was with. The 30-year-old has actually had a string of high-profile relationships over the years, dating Ajla Tomljanovic from 2019 to 2022, then Italian television presenter Melissa Satta through early 2024, a brief relationship with Federica Lelli, and most recently dancer Vanessa Bellini, before the two split as recently as June. None of that history has stopped fans from reacting to the Peggy Gou footage as something genuinely new.

This was a side of Berrettini that many fans had never seen before. The 30-year-old isn’t known to be a party animal and generally keeps his life private. He really needed some time off the court, as his luck with injuries and results hasn’t been great as of late.

He’s earned the break. Berrettini opened 2026 in a rough stretch, dropping out of the top 100 and briefly playing Challenger-level events just to find rhythm again. He clawed his way back during the clay season, reaching his first Grand Slam quarterfinal since 2022 at Roland Garros, his first appearance there since 2021 after missing four straight editions to injury.

That run nearly went even further. Berrettini led his quarterfinal against countryman Matteo Arnaldi before a hip injury forced him to retire trailing 7-5, 5-2, making Arnaldi just the second man in the Open era to win a Roland Garros quarterfinal by retirement. Berrettini later said he’d felt something in his hip as early as the first set but pushed through for as long as he could before finally stopping after two hours on court, visibly emotional in his chair afterward.

“I’m the last one that wants to retire. I’m tired of retiring. I just don’t want to do it, but sometimes you have to do it,” he had said during the post-match press conference on June 3. “A lot of players have done it in the past, and it’s the worst feeling ever, but it’s the right thing to do, because it’s not the last tournament I’m going to play in my life, and I have to think about my future. I have to think about my recovery.”

That hip issue didn’t fully go away. Berrettini skipped the rest of the grass swing except Wimbledon, where he beat Stan Wawrinka in a four-set battle and then Arthur Fils to reach the third round, before losing a five-set thriller to Grigor Dimitrov, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3.

That result is what set up the announcement that followed.

Matteo Berrettini had sustained multiple serious injuries in 2025

A post-Wimbledon medical exam showed the hip problem hadn’t actually cleared up. Berrettini withdrew from both Gstaad and Kitzbühel to rest ahead of the hard-court swing.

“After discussions with my doctor and team, I’ve been diagnosed with chronic hip pain and advised the best course of action is to withdraw and rest in order to be ready for the US swing,” Berrettini wrote. “Thank you for your continued support and see you on the hard courts.”

This isn’t the first time an injury has derailed a promising Berrettini stretch. In 2025, he retired against Casper Ruud at the Rome Masters trailing 7-5, 2-0 with a right oblique injury, an issue that cost him the French Open entirely. He returned at Wimbledon but lost in the first round to Kamil Majchrzak, then missed the next two months, including the entire US Open swing, with recurring physical problems. He eventually returned at the Hangzhou Open, lost in the first round there too, and finished the season with just six wins across his final five tournaments.

He’s currently 15-11 for 2026 and back in the top 50, real progress compared to where his year started. Whether that progress holds now depends on how his hip responds over the next few weeks. The Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open both arrive before the US Open begins August 31, giving Berrettini two Masters 1000 stops to test his fitness before a tournament he’s reached the semifinals of before and missed entirely last year.