Fabio Fognini busts a move as guest on Italy's 'Dancing with the Stars'

Goodness gracious ... Fabio Fognini can dance! The former Top 10 player impressed with fancy feet this week on a guest appearance on Ballando con le stelle, Italy's version of the Dancing with the Starsfranchise.

The current season of the show, its 19th all-time and running since the end of September, features Italian household names including retired swimming great Federica Pellegrini. But in a unique twist compared to its English-language counterparts, each episode of the Italian show also features one guest performance, dubbed Ballerini per una notte(Dancer for the Night), which is rated by the show's judges. The points earned are then given by the guest to a contestant couple of their choice.

Dancing with professional Giada Lini, Fognini boogied to the Jerry Lee Lewis song, "Great Balls of Fire," during his cameo for Saturday's second semifinal. The fiery performance saw Fognini shuffle gracefully around the stage, lifting Lini more than once, and the crescendo came as the 2019 Monte Carlo champion leap-frogged over her head to end the dance.

(It also revealed that Fognini recently ditched the bleach-blonde hair he debuted in June and returned to his natural dark tresses.)

Fognini's fancy feet didn't just impress the audience, but also tennis fans online and even his fellow players.

His wife, 2015 US Open champion Flavia Pennetta, delivered a special message to her husband after his standing ovation, even joking that she may join him the next time he trades the tennis court for the ballroom, and Alexander Zverev had his own praise for Fognini, too.

"This is the single greatest thing I've seen this year," wrote the world No. 2 on Instagram, even going so far as to sharing the clip of Fognini's dance to his story.

Tennis players are no stranger to the celebrity dancing competiton, which began with Great Britain's Strictly Come Dancingin 2004 and has spawned spin-offs in 60 countries. Annabell Croft, Martina Hingis and Judy Murray all once competed on Strictly, Martina Navratilova and Monica Seles have starred on the U.S. version over the years, and the most-recently concluded American season saw Joey Graziadei, one-time teaching tennis pro and star of *The Bachelor*, lift the conveted Mirrorball Tophy.

Abroad, Agnieszka Radwanska competed in the Polish version in 2019, and Andrea Sestini Hlavackova lent her name to the Czech version, StarDance, in 2021.