In an interview with AFP, Italian Tennis Federation President Angelo Binaghi spoke about the state of Italian tennis. Binaghi arrived at the head of the Federation in 2001, when there was only one Italian in the Top 100, and explained the reasons for his players’ success. currently : “It’s true that we’ve set up a decentralized system, by regionalizing the training centers, with a very high level of capillarity, but I don’t think that’s the reason. It may even be the least important reason. The most important thing is our SuperTennis TV channel (created in 2008, editor’s note). Twenty years ago, tennis had disappeared from the screens. If a sport is no longer seen on television, it’s no longer played by children, it’s destined to die.”

The executive linked this lack of visibility to the results achieved by players from one country: “In our Western European countries, tennis could become a more popular sport than soccer, but the French can’t develop if they make sure that Roland-Garros is broadcast on a pay channel in Italy, for example, if only rich people can watch this tournament on TV (…) it’s a huge strategic mistake. If I were president of the French Tennis Federation, I wouldn’t allow my tournaments to be broadcast on pay-TV. We have to do everything we can to ensure that our tournaments – Rome and the Masters in Italy, Roland-Garros and Bercy (the Paris Masters 1000, editor’s note) in France – are broadcast free-to-air throughout Europe. Finally, Binaghi said he hoped the Masters would remain in Italy in the future: “It depends on the ATP, we’ll know more on Sunday. We’re doing everything we can to make sure there’s a contract extension. If that’s the case, we’ll then see where, in Turin at the current site or in Milan, in a hall built for the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be bigger.”