Marta Menegatti (born 16 August 1990) is an Italian beach volleyball player who plays as a left-side defender with her partner Viktoria Orsi Toth. With former teammate Greta Cicolari, she achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 4 in August 2012. Her career highlights include two gold, seven silver and seven bronze medals on the FIVB World Tour. She is also the 2011 European champion and the 2013 Mediterranean Games champion, both achieved with Cicolari. Menegatti represented Italy at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, finishing fifth (with Cicolari) and ninth (with Laura Giombini) respectively.
Born into a sporting family, Menegatti started playing indoor volleyball at the age of nine. Her transition to beach volleyball began six or seven years later and she made her international debut in 2006. A decorated junior player, she medalled at four age-group World and European Championships with different partners. Menegatti debuted on the World Tour with Cicolari in 2009. The pair entered the top ten of the world rankings by their third year and medalled at seven World Tour events before an acrimonious split midway through 2013. Menegatti then teamed up with Orsi Toth and reached the podium five more times over the next three years, including her first World Tour title in 2015. Following Orsi Toth's suspension right before the 2016 Olympics, Menegatti struggled with different partners. Orsi Toth's return in the summer of 2018 brought about a return to form, with Menegatti climbing from a low of No. 81 back into the top 25 of the world rankings.
Menegatti has been noted as a complete player who can impact games on defense. She is the 2011 FIVB Most Improved Player.
Early life Born in Rovigo, Menegatti grew up in Ariano nel Polesine and hails from a sporting family. Her father Maurizio was an amateur footballer, while her mother Cinzia was an indoor volleyball player in the Serie C, the fifth tier of the Italian volleyball league system. Her younger brother Pietro is a footballer who has played as a goalkeeper for various Serie C and D clubs. Her mother described her as a quiet and resolute child. After trying out various sports including synchronised swimming and dance, Menegatti began playing indoor volleyball at the age of nine. She first played for a youth team in Taglio di Po, then later for a team in Jolanda di Savoia where her mother coached. In 2004, prior to her 14th birthday, Menegatti successfully tried out for the indoor volleyball club ASD Teodora Ravenna. She thus moved to Ravenna and spent the next five years playing in the Serie B1 and B2, the third and fourth tier of the Italian volleyball league system respectively.
While in Ravenna, Menegatti's indoor club often trained on a local beach, prompting her foray into beach volleyball. She began playing beach volleyball in the summer of 2005 or 2006, but did not take to it at first, partly because of the difficulty of playing on sand. Menegatti took it as a personal challenge to get better on the beach; she said years later that the challenging aspect of beach volleyball was probably what won her over from indoor. Soon after getting into the sport, she competed in her first beach tournament at the Trophy of the Regions (), a national youth competition organised by the Italian Volleyball Federation (FIPAV). She was selected to the junior national team after coming in second at the event. Menegatti continued to play both beach and indoor volleyball over the next few years, entering beach tournaments during the summer indoor off-seasons.
Career 2006–2008: Junior years Menegatti made her international debut on the Challenger and Satellite circuit in August 2006, where she and her partner Debora Pini placed ninth at the $10K Eboli Satellite tournament. From 2006 to 2008, Menegatti was paired with various partners to represent Italy at the annual U20 European, U19 World and U21 World Championships. She won her first international medal in the age-group category when she and Gilda Lombardo were runners-up at the 2007 edition of the U19 World Championships.
2009: Partnering with Cicolari, World Tour debut In the summer of 2009, at the age of 19, Menegatti was offered a spot on the Italian beach volleyball national team. She quit indoor volleyball to focus solely on the beach game. National team coach Lissandro Carvalho introduced her to Greta Cicolari, and the two began competing together on the Challenger and Satellite circuit, winning one silver and three bronze medals in 2009. Menegatti and Cicolari debuted in their first FIVB World Tour event at the $190K Barcelona Open in September. They defeated Rebecca Moskowitz and Kristina May of Canada in three sets to qualify for the double-elimination main draw, eventually finishing 13th after losing to Shelda Bede and Ana Paula Connelly of Brazil in the third round of the losers bracket. One month later at the $190K Sanya Open, the pair came through the qualifiers and upset two of the top-three seeds on their way to the semifinals where they lost to Angie Akers and Tyra Turner of the United States. They became the first Italian women's team to advance to a semifinal on the World Tour since 2001, and the third overall in the tour's 18-year history. They concluded their first year as teammates ranked 43 in the world.
Menegatti also continued to represent her country in age-group events. In August, she played with Laura Giombini at the U23 European Championships where they finished 19th. Later in the month, Menegatti and her partner Debora Allegretti won the U20 European Championships; they went on to compete at the U21 World Championships in September, finishing 9th.
2010: First World Tour podium In May 2010, Menegatti and Cicolari competed in their first World Tour major event at the $300K Rome Grand Slam, where they were knocked out by eventual champions Jennifer Kessy and April Ross of the United States to tie for ninth. They did not manage better than ninth at the next four Grand Slams either. Towards the end of the season, Menegatti played with Valeria Rosso on the World Tour as Cicolari was recovering from a muscle strain. Menegatti and Rosso became the first Italian pair to reach a World Tour final at the $190K Phuket Open in November. Seeded 16th, they upset three of the top-ten seeds before falling to the fourth-seeded Nicole Branagh and Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States in the gold-medal match. Despite Cicolari's absence, Menegatti and Cicolari ended the year with an improved world ranking of No. 23.
Menegatti attained two more podium finishes on the age-group circuit. She was the silver medalist at the U23 European Championships with Giombini in August, following a loss to the Czech team of Kristýna Kolocová and Markéta Sluková in the gold-medal match. The next month, Menegatti briefly teamed up with Viktoria Orsi Toth to claim another silver medal at the U21 World Championships, losing a tight three-setter to the American team of Tara Roenicke and Summer Ross in the finals.
2011: European champions
Menegatti and Cicolari medalled on the World Tour three times in 2011. The first was a silver medal at the $190K Myslowice Open in May, where they reached the finals as the No. 14 seeds with upsets over three of the top-five seeds, before falling to the sixth-seeded Dutch team of Sanne Keizer and Marleen van Iersel. In July, they entered the $300K Gstaad Grand Slam as the No. 5 seeds. They advanced to the semifinals undefeated, including a 19–21, 21–19, 15–11 quarterfinals win over the USA's third-seeded Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. In the semifinals, they lost to the second-seeded Juliana Silva and Larissa França of Brazil, but came back the next day to beat another Brazilian team of Maria Elisa Antonelli and Talita Antunes to claim the bronze medal. Menegatti closed out the year by medalling at the $190K Phuket Open once again, this time with a third-place finish with Cicolari.
Menegatti and Cicolari entered their first World Championships in Rome as the No. 13 seeds. With a partisan crowd, they topped their group and won their first knockout match against Russia's Anastasia Vasina and Anna Vozakova. They were eliminated from the competition in the Round of 16 by China's Xue Chen and Zhang Xi in straight sets. They ended the year sixth in the world rankings, and Menegatti was named the FIVB Most Improved Player.
The pair competed at the European Championships for the first time in August. Coming in as the No. 2 seeds, they advanced to the final four without meeting any of the top-ten seeds. In their semifinal match against the Czech Republic's tenth-seeded Lenka Háječková and Hana Skalníková, they rallied from a first-set loss to win 19–21, 21–13, 15–13. They were crowned the new European champions with a dominating 21–10, 21–12 win over the 16th-seeded Barbara Hansel and Sara Montagnolli of Austria in the championship match.
2012: London Olympics
In the lead up to the 2012 Summer Olympics, Menegatti and Cicolari competed in seven World Tour events. They medalled in three of them, starting off 2012 with a bronze at the $190K Brasília Open, followed by a silver at the $300K Beijing Grand Slam, and another bronze at the $300K Berlin Grand Slam. They notched victories against top teams including the Brazilian pairs of Juliana and Larissa, and Maria Antonelli and Talita, as well as the American pairs of May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings, and Kessy and April Ross. In order to avoid worsening a shoulder injury, Menegatti skipped the European Championships in May and was thus not able to defend her title.
Menegatti and Cicolari qualified for the London Olympics on 18 June 2012 via their Olympic ranking points. They were ranked No. 5 in the world at the time and were considered the tournament's dark horse due to their recent success on the World Tour. The duo went undefeated in the group stage. They rallied from a set down to win their first match against Russia's Ekaterina Birlova and Evgeniya Ukolova. This was followed by a 21–18, 21–12 victory over Zara Dampney and Shauna Mullin of Great Britain. Their final group stage match saw them beat Marie-Andrée Lessard and Annie Martin of Canada in three sets to top their group with a 6–2 set record. They won their first knockout match against Spain's Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez to progress to the quarterfinals where they faced May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings. The Americans defeated them in straight sets, thus ending Menegatti and Cicolari's Olympic run. Menegatti was visibly upset during the quarterfinals match; she later explained that her tears were due to the frustration of losing, particularly to her hero May-Treanor.
A few days after the Olympics, they entered their last tournament of the year at the $300K Stare Jablonki Grand Slam; they came in second with a loss to Juliana and Larissa in the gold-medal match. After Stare Jablonki, Menegatti and Cicolari reached a career-high world ranking of No. 4.
2013: Partnering with Orsi Toth Menegatti and Cicolari represented Italy at the 2013 Mediterranean Games in June. They finished a dominant tournament run—in which they did not drop a set—with a 21–16, 21–13 victory over Vassiliki Arvaniti and Peny Karagkouni of Greece. The duo took part in the World Championships the following month, advancing to the quarterfinals where they were defeated by Brazil's Liliane Maestrini and Bárbara Seixas. On the World Tour, Menegatti and Cicolari competed in five events together in the first half of 2013; their best results were three fifth-place finishes. In what would be their last tournament together, they placed ninth at the $220K Gstaad Grand Slam in July. reported that the pair had gone to the Gstaad tournament without any of their coaching staff due to growing tensions between Cicolari and national team coach Carvalho.