Focus on… Campania. The push of 100,000

This weekend, the CUPRA FIP Tour also makes a stop in Italy, with the FIP Rise in Nola, a city in the province of Naples. Italy, after Spain, is the second country in the world as an organiser of international FIP tournaments: to date, there are 66, including six Premier Padel draws (two men’s in 2022, two ‘combined’ in 2023, again in Rome and Milan, to which will be added as many in 2024 between Rome, Milan and the new entry Genoa) and 60 draws between men’s and women’s of the CUPRA FIP Tour. The FIP Rise in Nola will be the first international tournament to be held in the province of Naples but also in its region, Campania, Italy’s fifth-largest region in terms of facilities with more than 250 clubs and facilities and 550 padel courts (of which more than 100 indoor).

In 2023, according to data from the FIP Research & Data Analysis Department, Campania had a 38 per cent increase in courts compared to the previous year and higher than the increase in Italy, which was 26 per cent. In Campania, there are 120 municipalities where padel can be played: it is estimated that there are more than 100,000 amateur players and over 400,000 followers on social networks. Naples is also the second largest Italian province in terms of clubs (139) and has more than 300 courts where padel can be played, spread over 47 municipalities including Nola. The Naples stage of the CUPRA FIP Tour will take place at the Pala Padel, a new club inaugurated in 2023 with four indoor courts with regulation gates for international tournaments. Among the players are young Italians Flavio Abbate and Giulio Graziotti, the only Italian pair to have won two CUPRA FIP Tour Rise tournaments in 2024: in Kaunas, Lithuania, and London, UK, both in March.