Tennis, the new tournament on grass towards Milan

The new grass tennis tournament that Italia will host in 2028 could be played in Milan, as Angelo Binaghi, president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, hinted when presenting the agreement between the Federation and the Istituto per il Credito Sportivo e Culturale in the press room of the Centrale at the Foro Italico.

'Today there is no institution in Italia with which we do more operations than Credito Sportivo,' Binaghi stressed. 'They are at the service of our sports clubs and important operations that the Federation is doing, without asking for anything in return. All the important operations that we have carried out in recent years we have done with their support: the purchase, which was fundamental for us, of the new headquarters in Via della Camilluccia; the acquisition of the Brussels tournament, which we had been trying to obtain for ten years, since we wanted a grass tournament to bring to northern Italia; and the operation to support sports clubs that need new courts and roofs on which the Federation intervenes and cuts interest and all expenses to zero'.

'We already have a number of important projects that have been funded,' added the Federtennis number one. 'We would like to extend all these measures because there are other possible areas of intervention, such as energy saving. We want to try to broaden the areas of intervention and the number of beneficiaries'.

'On the Brussels tournament that we have purchased we are starting to address the issue of the venue. We don't have any clubs with grass courts, so we will have to go back to the Credito Sportivo to create an ad hoc structure owned by the Federation. The grass courts, they explained to us at Wimbledon, need four years of stability and we cannot rely either on the red tape of the public or the fickleness of the private sector. I believe this will be the impetus to create our own club.

On the possible location of the new tournament, Binaghi explained: 'We have some sites that we have already visited in Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy. We do not exclude the south and the islands, but the uncovered area for us is the north. We have a big centre of attraction in Milan. I don't know if it will be possible to get there immediately or in the medium term, but that is an uncovered area. There is no site there to organise a tournament. In perspective, our head is set on the city of Milan, with which we have been holding talks for some time to create facilities and spaces'.