Italy to host Premier Padel Major in May

Rome: The International Padel Federation (FIP), the Italian Tennis Federation (FIT) and Sport e Salute (the Italian Government’s sports agency) announced that Italy will host a Premier Padel Major in May as part of a new multi-year tournament deal.

Premier Padel is the official global padel tour, governed by FIP and backed by the Professional Padel Association (PPA) and Qatar Sports Investments (QSI).

The annual category one tournament, which will be known as the Italy Premier Padel Major, will take place at the historic Foro Italico in Rome from 23 to 29 May 2022. The Qualifiers will take place on 21 and 22 May, with the main draw starting at their conclusion.

The Italy Premier Padel Major completes the roster of four Majors of the new Premier Padel tour in 2022, namely: Italy, France, Mexico and Qatar. The Italy Premier Padel Major will offer 2000 ranking points to players, and also record prize money, in keeping with all “Majors” under the new Premier Padel tour.

Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, Chairman of Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), said: “This is another momentous moment for the development of padel under the new Premier Padel tour, both across Europe and globally. Italy is a proud and passionate sports nation, and Rome provides another fantastic venue for the professional players to showcase their talent on the world’s stage.”

Launched earlier this year, Premier Padel will host at least 10 new tournaments in 2022 – including four category one “Major” events. The first major – the Ooredoo Qatar Major 2022 – took place in Doha in March. Together with the Italy Premier Padel Major in May, the other category one tournaments are the Paris Premier Padel Major at Stade Roland Garros taking place on 11 July to 17 July, and the Mexico Premier Padel Major at the Club Sonoma en Monterrey, México on 28 November to 4 December. The first category two tournament has also been announced in recent weeks with the Argentina Premier Padel P1 taking place from 8 to 14 August. More announcements are to come.

Valentina Vezzali, Undersecretary for Sport, Italian Government, said: “In the last two years, sport has shown great resilience and has achieved multiple results, giving Italy great satisfaction. Padel has grown a lot in our country in terms of the number of enthusiasts and professionals and the fact that the synergy between FIT, Sport and Health and the International Federation has made it possible to host one of the four stages of the Premier Padel Major in Rome – immediately after the Internationals of tennis – it fills me with satisfaction.”

According to data from the Padel National Observatory, grassroots padel in Italy has grown 5-fold since early 2020 measured by number of padel courts; while the number of padel schools and clubs has tripled.

Luigi Carraro, President of the International Padel Federation, said: “This is an incredibly exciting and special moment for padel in Italy. Thanks to the excellent work by sports institutions, clubs and players (both amateur and professional), our sport has grown enormously over the last five years – and it gives me great pleasure that we’ve been able to bring a Premier Padel Major to Italy. I can confidently say that fans in Rome, and the millions watching around the world, will be treated to some world class Premier Padel action at the Foro Italico next month.”