Great tennis arrives in Sardinia
From 29 April to 5 May, on the courts of Monte Urpinu, the great Italian tennis spring opens with the second edition of the "Sardinia Open", a premium event of the prestigious Challenger 175 category. A precious testing ground for our best young players
Spring arrives and great tennis arrives in Italy. And it does so with an exclamation point thanks to a real gem: the first Challenger 175 category tournament of the season scheduled in Europe after the debut in Phoenix, Arizona, which also saw among the protagonists the Italians Fabio Fognini and Matteo Berrettini.
From 29 April to 5 May, in fact, on the red clay courts of the Cagliari Tennis Club, a luxury appetizer will be staged at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia. An unmissable event for racket enthusiasts because these events on the ATP calendar - already called "Super Challenger" - have been designed precisely to offer great entertainment and are presented as tournaments much more similar to the ATP 250 than to the category whose name they bear.
FITP president Angelo Binaghi launches the Cagliari event like this in his hometown: "It will be a great tournament and this year it will have to be the launching pad for our players as it was for tennis players like Humbert and Shelton" . Events like this represent, in fact, a precious testing ground for young emerging Italians. While waiting to know the names of the players admitted to the main draw and the wild cards (there is already talk of Matteo Berrettini), the presence of 22-year-old Luciano Darderi seems certain.
Number 73 in the ATP ranking, Darderi is fresh from his first ATP title won in Cordoba and has never made a secret of his dream of playing at the Foro Italico. The choice of Cagliari was not accidental because on the red clay of the Sardinian club, already home to numerous successful Davis challenges - how can we forget Paolo Cané's legendary victory against the then n.1 Mats Wilander in 1990 - they were written important pages in the recent history of our tennis.
Cagliari fans have always been very competent and for them this Challenger represents another special opportunity to be able to admire the players who will then be busy on the capital's pitches the following week. Beyond the most promising Italian players, the "Sardinia Open" represents a unique opportunity to look closely at the big names in world tennis, especially those who will have already concluded their commitment in the Masters 1000 in Madrid and who are already on the road which will take them to Rome.
The city of Cagliari is now fully one of the homes of Italian tennis and the excellent organization of this Super Challenger - which boasts a prize pool of 205,000 euros - confirms this. Inserted in 2020 and 2021 in the ATP 250 circuit, since last year the Sardinian tournament has become a Premium event in the Challenger category after the reform desired by the ATP.
In 2023 it was the 25-year-old Frenchman Ugo Humbert (now n.14 ATP) who gained momentum from the Sardinian tournament and then climbed the rankings. But Cagliari also fell in love with the American Ben Shelton, n.16 in the world rankings, who impressed the Sardinian public at just 20 years old. All that remains is to sit in the stands of the Monte Urpinu club to see which champions will flourish in this spring of great tennis.
