Great tennis is finally back as a protagonist in Italy. While the anticipation for the Internazionali BNL d'Italia is now skyrocketing, from 30 April to 5 May (qualifiers on 28 and 29 April) the "Sardinia Open" will be staged, the first European tournament of the prestigious Challenger 175 category which, also This year, it inaugurates the season of major Italian tennis events.
If in 2021 - when a 250 category ATP was played on the red clay of the Tennis Club Cagliari - the tournament launched players of the caliber of Lorenzo Sonego (who won that edition of the tournament) or Lorenzo Musetti (then n.90 and today 24 ATP), after the 2022 break, in the last edition Sardinia brought two foreign players well.
Starting from Ugo Humbert who from No. 77 ATP, overcoming the Serbian Laslo Djere in the final, won the tournament and then took the run-up which took him, after the successes in Metz, Dubai and Marseille, up to number 15 in the ATP ranking .
But the 25-year-old French left-hander is not the only one to have left his mark on the circuit after his exploit in Cagliari. Those who watched last year's matches will certainly remember the American Ben Shelton, capable of reaching an amazing semi-final on a surface practically unknown to him. The American left-hander (now no. 17 in the ranking), after a premature defeat on his debut at the Masters 1000 in Madrid, chose Cagliari to gain confidence on European clay.
In fact, the Super Challenger revolution desired by the ATP in 2023 was born precisely from the need to give players a new opportunity, in the second week of some Masters 1000 (Indian Wells, Madrid, Rome). To make this possible, the ATP eliminated the restriction on the top 50, maintaining only the one relating to the absolute ban on participation in the top 10. If a player is included in the top ten at the time of closing the entry list - which for a challenger normally it is three weeks before the tournament, you are not like the major circuit tournaments - he will not be able to participate in the event in any way. The difference, as is easy to understand, is enormous and, on a purely theoretical level, in Cagliari we could have a scoreboard with all the participants by right of ranking inside the top 30.
The hope, for the edition that is about to start, is that the Italian players will smile again, a wish expressed several times by the president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation: "It will be a great tournament - commented Angelo Binaghi - and this year it must be the launching pad for our players."
The wait is all for an authentic racket big name that those best informed will most likely be at the starting line of the tournament scheduled on the Monte Urpinu courts: Matteo Berrettini.
Fresh from the final played in the first "Super Challenger" of 2024 staged in Phoenix, sunny Arizona, Matteo (already n.6 ATP in January 2022) is trying to find his rhythm again after more than six months of stopping due to right ankle injury suffered in New York at the end of August. What better opportunity for the 27 year old Roman, today n. 142 ATP, to get familiar with the red before the expected crowd at the Foro Italico.
This is why placing Cagliari on the calendar a week before Rome is so strategic. As we could already see in March for the first Super Challenger staged in Phoenix - in which Fabio Fognini also took part - the technical level of a "175" is very high and represents the best possible aperitif before the great Roman event .
